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Gurlesque poetics is characterized by a subversive blend of the grotesque and the feminine, mirroring the album's exploration of femininity through a lens of defiance and subversion.

And though his range is wide, there has always been intellectual ambition in his choice of subject matter: a serious interest in the poetics of human tragedy.

“The poetics of her practice is just magical,” says the artist Clifford Owens, who has researched and made work about the neglected history of African American performance art.

It didn’t matter what the conditions were — the practical conditions — people still express that poetics in ways that are accessible to them, like at the very basic level, in their bodily adornment.

Here are nine tracks that showcase the sly invention and dark poetics of Shorter’s compositions and saxophone sound.