Spirit of Rebellion is exceptional for the addition of prose. The stream of consciousness prose in "It was a Long and Lonely Night" was first rate. But as always, it is his deeply felt poetry that shines.

"Just Once" expresses Shaumyan's deep loneliness:

Just once I want to feel free from this depression,
Just once.......

O to feel the sadness of the naked Moon,
to touch the needles of despair, to hug the stones of pain.
Tonight dress me in black velvet and hang me upon a
cross.

In "O God, I Could Never Create" he cries out for an Earth and a humanity he longs to rescue:

But I can kiss the Earth, breathing Love into
this once infertile soil,
And I can make this paper into music,

"To a Poet Who Looks for Dinosaurs in His Toilet Bowl" mixes Shaumyan's bizarre humor with the poet's hope:

.....that verbal acrobat playing
with images and words
that spread a magic veil
over the world of anguish,
loneliness and despair --

He rails hopelessly against the world's ugliness and sorrow in "Some Thoughts on War and Human Ugliness":

I'm not in my right mind and
I cannot write poetry amidst it all --
as if something inside me has been
cut --

As always, he dreams of desire, love and hope, but tempers these thoughts with harsh realism, as in "With Years":

With years your drive goes down
And your soul
Becomes accustomed to the daily grind --
With years you, too, become a local clown
Indifferent to everything and blind.