Self Love

Attempted love and sexual identity form the recurring themes of W.G. Shepherd's third collection of poems. As in his previous books, "Sun, Oak, Almond, I" (1970) and "Evidences" (1980), he writes searchingly in a variety of styles, lyric, narrative and reflective. His poems, wrote Christopher Hope reviewing "Evidences", 'are a rare blend: thoroughly disciplined yet unrelentingly experimental'. W.G. Shepherd writes compellingly, whether exploring ideas of emotional loss through the broken discourse of the "Serenade" poems, portraying the frustrations of the immature and egocentric character in the verse biography "Guy", or translating an erotic poem by Ovid.