The differing strategies of the two books can be established at the outset from their titles. Some Are Drowning confronts its readers with a statement of fact, though whether intended as wail, warning or whisper we cannot be sure. Angel, Interrupted presents two seemingly opposing terms, each trailing its comet-stream of associations. The only thing between us is the world, sidewalks and shrubs, windows glutted with finite regrets. You can't walk through the thinghood empty-handed, shirking the knives of fact.
Racial otherness is read as urgent entitlement, a vocation to decode.
In the lyric's eternal present, he positions the reader in a state of ruin and in a perpetual rush, an opening gesture that will shadow the varying tone and psychic resonances that follow. Whether the waters he conjures are healing, ravaging, or simply polluted, Shepherd succeeds in instilling in this atavistic icon a fierce modernity. The radio's repeated madrigals all night, coldness and romance compose themselves to improvise a singing renaissance. Overall, the sheer excess of sonic texture and stance suggests a sensibility drawn to abandon, while the prosodic interruptions reveal one equally suspicious of it. This quotation could serve as a gloss on Shepherd's text as well.