The Selected Reginald Shepherd

The Selected Shepherd is a very welcome arrival that may encourage readers to re-discover an award-winning, fiercely intelligent poet, anthologist, and critic.-- "The Gay and Lesbian Review"
The discovery of Reginald Shepherd's poetry--in an envelope, with a letter and a stamped self-addressed return--was among the highest points of my five years as editor of the Kenyon Review. Of course his poems were published, and a correspondence, a friendship ensued. His premature death was devastating. Rereading these poems, I follow the arc of their music, wit, erudition, narrative, tragedy: the chronicle of an exemplary (Black, gay, American, polymath out of the projects) life, but first of all, I admire, am in a bit of awe of, and thoroughly enjoy them.--Marilyn Hacker, author of Calligraphies
The extraordinary Reginald Shepherd remains both a tidal force and an enigmatic planet in contemporary poetry and in legendary Pitt Poetry Series editor Ed Ochester's vast constellation of stars. The brilliant Jericho Brown has distilled Shepherd's magnificence--a style born of the Bronx, rural Georgia, Iowa City, Eliot's Waste Land, and Orpheus's underworld--to a dynamic, essential volume. The Pitt Poetry Series is proud to present this landmark compilation.--Terrance Hayes, author of So to Speak and coeditor, Pitt Poetry Series