Otherhood: Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)
In this ambitious collection, Shepherd weaves together images of contemporary urban life and studied, even studious, expressions of classical myth. The effect of this meshing is to enliven both strands, so that, for instance, the mythic Sol Invictus, the unconquerable sun, literally illuminates the cityscape through which Shepherd moves. Hardly abandoning the homoerotic passion so sensuously prominent in his critically acclaimed earlier books,Angel, Interrupted(1996), andWrong(1999), he creates a sweeping context for it. Solar references abound, as when Icarus, the young man who flew too close to the sun, and the decadent demigod Elagabal meet Apollo and Daphne. But sunlight is not, as for many writers who employ such archetypal schemas, a corollary to disembodied reason. Instead, Shepherd reminds us how, in nature, sunlight energizes plantlife;the poems are positively jungly with botanical references employed as if they were incantations. A book worth reading and rereading.Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved