Red Clay Weather

At mid-life, the self starts to dissolve into a more impersonal Self—call it something integrated, individuated, divine. Like those whose names are 'writ on water,' Reginald Shepherd's final poems in this posthumous volume testify to a life courageously lived to the full—an Orphic downstream singing to the end.
Timothy Liu

“Among other things, Shepherd has always been an elemental poet. His work abounds with the imagery and motifs of water and fire, and while those elements are important here, it is air and earth that are the more dominant elements in this collection. . . .

Clay, red clay in particular, recurs several times throughout the collection as a motif of earth. It is the substance of creation, but always of impermanent things, whether heroes or Babylonian statues with feet of clay, or of things durable but fragile, such as the cuneiform tablets of ‘A Parking Lot Just Outside the Ruins of Babylon.’”

—Robert Philen, from the Foreword

104 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

January, 2011

isbn : 9780822961499

about the author

Reginald Shepherd

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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Reginald Shepherd