In his intense and mournful fifth collection, Shepherd (Some Are Drowning
) mixes myth, TV, street lingo and fidelity to the poetic tradition to create poems that elegize a world which, as in the phenomenon after which the book is titled, is distorted and bent out of shape. Opening with a series of stunning, possibly autobiographical revisions of the Orpheus/Persephone myth ("One death/ or another every day, Tanqueray bottles/ halo the bed and she won't wake up/ all weekend"), Shepherd continues through cautionary tales for an era when almost everything seems unsafe ("I left my love of me behind/ to fester in the slough of cast-off self/ -regard, with other toxic wastes, condoms/ I forgot") and redressed literature for a darkened age ("Ophelia/ sings flowers in hell to all the goodnight/ ladies"). A 9/11 poem confesses to the obsession TV engenders: "I have watched twin towers fall/ a dozen times." Shepherd's rigid stanzas and ear for music in a minor key spread this bad news beautifully. (Feb.)
