Angel, Interrupted - University of Pittsburgh Press

Angel, Interrupted

There is a hard and lucid quality in Shepherd's work. The words seem to be burned into the page with lasers, so precise and sharp-edged are they. . . . Shepherd's language is big and torqued with passion, and his images pile densely but are pulled through the text by a strong rope of narrative. . . . These poems are rich, wild, deep, and strong.

Booklist

Angel, Interupted is Reginald Shepherd’s second poetry collection. The poems are lyrical, streetwise and contemporary, yet timeless, classically referential, and introspective.

More Praise

This is a book of unabashed lyricism and in-your-face contemporaneity, bristling with intelligence, challenging the reader to envision at once the panhandlers of Chicago and the princess of Troy, the iconic beauty of Narcissus of Antinous superimposed upon numinous black and white American bodies in a warily passionate embrace.

Marilyn Hacker

Angel Interrupted is written on water. Fluid, bright, and moving, fully aware of the fleeting beauty of the things of this world, these poems catch the light between lyric and myth.

Susan Stewart

There is such an exuberant sadness to this collection that no one will escape it unchanged. Reginald Shepherd's instructions to us are simple: 'Read this and tell me what it says.'

Bin Ramke

Table of Contents

Sample

96 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

October, 1996

isbn : 9780822956143

Series

Pitt Poetry Series

Subjects

about the author

Reginald Shepherd (1963–2008) was a Black, gay poet who grew up in the Bronx and went on to receive two MFAs, one from Brown University and one from the Iowa Writers Workshop. He authored two collections of poetry criticism and six poetry collections, all published by the University of Pittsburgh Press: Red Clay Weather, Fata Morgana, Otherhood, Wrong, Angel, Interrupted, and Some Are Drowning. His work has been widely awarded and anthologized and has appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. Shepherd received many awards and honors over his career, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others.

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