I'm at a loss for words. Reginald Shepherd was MY poet. He was the only contemporary writer whose career I've followed. I first met Mr. Shepherd through his book of poetry "Some Are Drowning" in 1993, and also being black and gay, I identified with his writing very closely. I subsequently went on to purchase each of his books as soon as copies became available. And it was in the spring of 2003 that I got a chance to work with him on an interview about him and his work that was published in a 2003 edition of "Pleiades." That was my first publishing credit, and it couldn't have come as the result of a better subject.
Mr. Shepherd was one of the brainiest and imaginative people I've ever had a chance to know on any level. "Orpheus in the Bronx" is a call to educators and young marginalized people to seize what is on offer and make it their own. The fact that Orpheus could even take up residence in the Bronx was a new concept to millions of people, myself included, who believed that the seeds of African American narratives begin and end in the ghetto. What we learned through Mr. Shepherd is that the ghetto is pliable and diverse--or at least can be if we let it be, if that is our choice.
I'm sorry that I didn't know Mr. Shepherd was ill, because I certainly would have told him just how much his work and life means to me, that he has taught me, more so than anyone else that anything I can wrap my mind around can be mine.
We need to take these concepts to the "hood", let these children know that Orpheus, Hamlet, Zeus, and, yes, Narcissus, live in the ghetto, too, and are a part of African American narratives.
(Reginald Shepherd, poet and essayist. A graduate of the University of Iowa famed Writer's Workshop, Reginald Shepherd's first book, "Some Are Drowning", was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1994 as winner of the 1993 Associated Writing Programs' Award in Poetry. The University of Pittsburgh Press subsequently published each volume of his poems. "Angel, Interrupted" followed in 1996, and was a finalist for a 1997 Lambda Literary Award. "Wrong" was published in 1999, and his fourth book, "Otherhood", was published in April 2003. Later he also published "Fata Morgana" and a book of essays entitled "Orpheus in the Bronx," which was a finalist for the award for criticism by the National Book Critics Circle. Shepherd had received a 1993 Discovery/The Nation award, the 1994 George Kent Prize from Poetry magazine, and grants from the NEA, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. He earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and won the 2007 silver medal for poetry in the Florida Book Awards.)
You can read some of his poems at: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/poets/368/. My favorite is "Skin Trade".
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