Otherhood - (Pitt Poetry) by Reginald Shepherd (Paperback)

About the Book

The fourth collection from this much-praised poet combines lyricism with experimentation, creating a unique synthesis of passion and linguistic exploration.

Book Synopsis

Written in the spaces between otherness and brotherhood, Otherhood combines traditional lyricism with experimentalism, passionate engagement with cold-eyed investigation, and personal details with a depersonalized distance to create a new poetic synthesis.

Review Quotes

[Shepherd's] gifts are admirable in their abundance and their brilliance.-- "American Book Review"

[Shepherd] is a master of figurative speech, especially metaphors. . . .A stunningly beautiful collection.-- "Library Journal"

A book worth reading and re-reading.-- "Patricia Monaghan, Booklist"

A poet who undeniably attempts and achieves more in each new book than the last. . . . dazzles the reader . . . With four books in the past decade, [he] has established himself as one of the great poets of his generation.-- "Crab Orchard Review"

Brilliant and elegiac. . . . A writer always conscious of the shadowy borders where myth and history--his own and Western civilization's--mingle.-- "Marilyn Hacker"

Poet and poems push to reinvent themselves, stanza by stanza, pursuing dynamism at the risk of imbalance or even dissolution. The risk is worth it. With Otherhood, Shepherd's gifts appear, incredibly, redoubled.-- "Constant Critic Reviews"

Shepherd continues the mining--making mine--of classical texts and textures which has been for so long his forte. . . . No poet of his generation brings more intelligence, passion, wit, and necessary madness to poetry.-- "Bin Ramke"

Through a breathtaking panoply of Grecian gods and Latinate terms, Reginald Shepherd weaves an elaborate mesh of language. The fascinating fabric of the poems in Otherhood is soundplay, and Shepherd is a vertuoso.-- "Perihelion"

True poets give gifts. Reginald Shepherd gives his readers the interest of the world. . . . Shepherd's book is a Song of Songs.-- "Allen Grossman"

We are treated to alternately scuttling and hypnotic rhythms, a dazzling range of diction, and the will to topple or invert established heirarchies of power and meaning. . . . Shepherd refuses to shy away from beauty's brutal aspect or to soften the motal edges of desire. . . . Advances his risk-taking body of work.-- "Boston Review"

About the Author

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.