The sun may have set on another National Poetry Month but that doesn’t mean the fun has to end. No, here at Off the Shelf we like to celebrate year round with Poetry 365, a monthly-minus-April feature that highlights a contemporary poet’s most recent work. This month we pick back up with Alan Shapiro’s ambitious new book Night of the Republic. Inventive, urgent, and moving, this twelfth collection from the L.A. Times Book Prize winner takes readers on a dreamlike tour of America’s public places. Breathing fresh life into generic spaces such as a gas station restroom, a dry cleaner, and a funeral home, the book offers unexpected insights that “illuminate the mingling of private obsessions with public space.” So while you bask in the afterglow of National Poetry Month, check out this excellent new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.