Angel, Interrupted

by Reginald Shepherd

Angel, Interupted is Reginald Shepherd’s second poetry collection. The poems are lyrical, streetwise and contemporary, yet timeless,  classically referential, and introspective.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Reginald Shepherd was the editor of The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press, 2004) and of Lyric Postmodernisms (Counterpath Press, 2008). He is the author of: Fata Morgana (2007), winner of the Silver Medal of the 2007 Florida Book Awards, Otherhood (2003), a finalist for the 2004 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, Wrong (1999), Angel, Interrupted (1996), and Some Are Drowning (1994), winner of the 1993 Associated Writing Programs’ Award in Poetry (all University of Pittsburgh Press). Shepherd's work has appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize anthologies, as well as in such journals as American Poetry Review, Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The Yale Review. It has also been widely anthologized. He is also the author of Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry (Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press). Shepherd has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Florida Arts Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other awards and honors.

Reviews

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's no secret that i'm not a fan of poetry, and i honestly cracked this open just for one poem, but found myself reading them all. quietly heartbreaking at times, there's some solid stuff in here.

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of poems was not easy to read, but there is beautiful language and he writes from a deep philosophical place that I know because I've been slowly reading his book Orpheus in the Bronx. This man is schooled in the academic realm of poetry that I don't even want to attempt.

Some lines from the preceding poem in the book which is the title poem, The Angel of Interruptions:

We interrupt this broadcast/to bring you a fatal infinity, the difference between fiction/and a clouded-over sky. We interrupt these lines/to bring you pebbles spilled from an open palm, someone/cleaning out his mind: here are some pockets/filled with salt, useful in case of dehydration.
You can't walk through/ the thinghood empty-handed, shirking the knives/of fact.
What is destroyed sends you its kisses, the art/of a homelessness.
The body is a factory that manufactures salt.

There is much to think about in this poem about homelessness in of Chicago. The predominance of salt is big, black people who lived through the middle passage have altered kidney functions, hence the high incidence of high blood pressure in African Americans. It's a theory that his hard to prove, but it makes sense. Reginald is a gay black man who has felt out of place his whole life. I was first drawn to his work when I read his article in Poets & Writers Magazine in the not too distant past, since that he has died. He was about my same age. I plan to read more of his books, each one he took on a new challenge so he does not have one style.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

a little disco gay for my taste, some real powerful lines but i just couldnt get over the strobe light repitition.