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profile/reginald-shepherd.md
Published: Fri Oct 15 1999
Wosene Worke Kosrof, The Inventor V (detail), 2022, acrylic on linen. Courtesy of Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
Manifest

Sir star, Herr Lenz, white season body
master snapping masts in half, absent
winds’ workmanship: what window
will I look you through, what brook, stream

creaking past fretwork weeds, clouds
in the context of cold? Lord knot
to be untied, skiff hard alee ill winds:
a hiss of wish and cinders and I

am warm, crossing dazed oceans by hand
to sow the doubtful sea with drought. Mine
of rain and seize and sluice, you change

your mind again, a rage for green waves’
open vowels, undrinkable. No talking
to the weeds, no talking with the snow.

See what's inside AGNI 50

The third book from Reginald Shepherd, _Wrong, _will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1999. His previous books, also from Pittsburgh, are _Some are Drowning _(1993 AWP award) and Angel, Interrupted. (updated 1999)

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