{{Short description|American poet (1963–2008)}} {{infobox writer |name=Reginald Shepherd |birth_date={{birth date|1963|4|10}} |birth_place=New York City, U.S. |death_date={{death date and age|2008|9|10|1963|4|10}} |death_place=Pensacola, Florida, U.S. |occupation=Poet |nationality=American |education=Bennington College<br>Brown University (MFA)<br>Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA) }} '''Reginald Shepherd''' (April 10, 1963 – September 10, 2008) was an American poet and teacher. His latest publication, ''The Selected Shepherd: Poems'', appeared in 2024.
== Biography == Reginald Shepherd was born in New York City and raised in the Bronx.<ref name=tpf>[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/reginald-shepherd Reginald Shepherd (1963-2008)]. The Poetry Foundation.</ref> Shepherd, African-American and gay,<ref name=tpf /> graduated from Bennington College in 1988, and received MFAs from Brown University and the University of Iowa, where he attended the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop. In his last year at the University of Iowa, he received the "Discovery" prize from the 92nd Street Y,<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poet/reginald-shepherd|title=Reginald Shepherd|first=Academy of American|last=Poets|website=Poets.org}}</ref> and his first collection, ''Some Are Drowning'' (1994), was chosen by Carolyn Forché for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Award in Poetry. He began his teaching career in the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and later taught at Northern Illinois University and Cornell University.<ref name="auto"/>
Shepherd died of cancer in Pensacola, Florida, in 2008.<ref name="auto"/>
== Career and recognition == Shepherd's poetry collections include: ''Red Clay Weather'' (2011); ''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); and ''Angel, Interrupted'' (1996).
He is also the author of ''A Martian Muse: Further Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry'' (published posthumously in 2010), ''Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry'' (2007) and the editor of ''The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries'' (2004) and of ''Lyric Postmodernisms'' (2008).<ref name="gug">{{cite web | url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/reginald-shepherd/ | title=Reginald Shepherd – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation… }}</ref>
Shepherd's work has been widely anthologized, including in four editions of ''The Best American Poetry'' and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. His honors and awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Florida Arts Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation.<ref name="gug"/> His 2008 book of essays, ''Orpheus in the Bronx,'' was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/page_2/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090225065707/http://www.bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/page_2|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 25, 2009|title=National Book Critics Circle: awards|website=bookcritics.org|language=en|access-date=2018-03-22}}</ref>
==Books==
===Poetry=== *''Some Are Drowning'' (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994) *''Angel, Interrupted'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996) *''Wrong'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999) *''Otherhood'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) *''Itinerary'' (Maryville, MO: Green Tower Press) {{ISBN|1887240055}} *''Fata Morgana'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007) *''Red Clay Weather'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011) *''The Selected Shepherd: Poems'', Selected & Introduced by Jericho Brown (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) {{ISBN|978-0822948216}}
===Criticism=== *''[http://press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=1432919 A Martian Muse: Further Readings on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry]'' (Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press, 2010) *''[http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=297174 Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry]'' (Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press, 2008)
===Anthologies=== *''The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries'' (University of Iowa Press, 2004) *''Lyric Postmodernisms'' (Counterpath Press, 2008)
===Letters=== *''Song After All: Letters of Reginald Shepherd and Alan Contreras'' (CraneDance Publications, 2013)
==References== <references />
==External links== * [https://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/ Shepherd's blog]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shepherd, Reginald}} Category:1963 births Category:2008 deaths Category:American male poets Category:Bennington College alumni Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Category:African-American poets Category:African-American LGBTQ people Category:American LGBTQ poets Category:American gay writers Category:20th-century American poets Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century African-American writers Category:21st-century African-American people Category:20th-century American LGBTQ people Category:African-American male writers Category:Gay poets