Reviews

Neil Shepard’s ninth book of poems, The Book of Failures, follows his collection of selected poems, How It Is, which gathered a quarter century’s worth of his work. After reading that book, I thought I would know what to expect from Shepard, but this new book startles, astonishes, provides the reader with a rare gift:  "a second life / in order to process the first one."

…Its tight-lipped title would seem to imply a stoical acceptance of the ways of the world, something which is borne out by a closer scrutiny of the poems and has been reinforced perhaps by his familiarity with the farming community of Vermont…