This first collection of poems enacts the struggle of a young black gay man in his search for identity. Many voices haunt these poems: black and white, male and female, the oppressor’s voice as well as the oppressed. The poet’s aim, finally, is to rescue some portion of the drowned and the drowning.
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Shepherd's poems are reckless in the best sense. Passionate, brainy, and sad, they chronicle the mysteries, small and large, of emotional and intellectual life in language that's a weird amalgam of Latinate and Anglo-Saxon, richly original and distinctively American. Reading them is like listening to a good talker on a tear. He tells secrets that might turn out to be your own.
Reginald Shepherd (1963-2008) was the author of five previous books of poetry: Fata Morgana; Otherhood; Wrong; Angel, Interrupted; and Some Are Drowning. His work has been widely anthologized, and has appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize anthologies.