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A review by thebooknerdscorner
October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman
3.0
An ode to the life of Matthew Shepard, a college student who died too young due to the injustice of a hate crime.
I really appreciate what this book is doing. It is shining a spotlight on a gay boy by the name of Matt Shepard who was killed by two arrogant young men that thought they were better than him, just because Matt was gay. It breaks my heart to read stories like this, but I know that they are all too common.
Despite the fact that I love the author's passion for the topic, the actual poetry itself was rather lackluster, in my opinion. Many of the poems felt really cheesy and the ones that featured inanimate objects/random animals really didn't do much for me. Many of the poems just felt clunky and like a way to fill the pages of a book.
However, the author's note at the end was beautiful. It was cool to hear how heavily affected Newman was by her chance meeting with Mr. Shepard's college community and hometown only days after his death. The fact that she was so heavily touched by the community's grief that she wrote about it years later is quite amazing.
Overall, "October Mourning" did a great job of introducing me to Matthew Shepard and did still tug at my heartstrings despite some of the poems being overly cheesy. I hope that this collection continues to spread awareness about what happened to Shepard and about the horrific hate crimes that members of the LGBTQIA+ community still have to deal with to this day. I pray that this will become an issue of the past erelong, but it will take a collective effort to install change if we want anything of value to stick. Just as Newman preaches, I beg of you to do your part to stop homophobia today.
I really appreciate what this book is doing. It is shining a spotlight on a gay boy by the name of Matt Shepard who was killed by two arrogant young men that thought they were better than him, just because Matt was gay. It breaks my heart to read stories like this, but I know that they are all too common.
Despite the fact that I love the author's passion for the topic, the actual poetry itself was rather lackluster, in my opinion. Many of the poems felt really cheesy and the ones that featured inanimate objects/random animals really didn't do much for me. Many of the poems just felt clunky and like a way to fill the pages of a book.
However, the author's note at the end was beautiful. It was cool to hear how heavily affected Newman was by her chance meeting with Mr. Shepard's college community and hometown only days after his death. The fact that she was so heavily touched by the community's grief that she wrote about it years later is quite amazing.
Overall, "October Mourning" did a great job of introducing me to Matthew Shepard and did still tug at my heartstrings despite some of the poems being overly cheesy. I hope that this collection continues to spread awareness about what happened to Shepard and about the horrific hate crimes that members of the LGBTQIA+ community still have to deal with to this day. I pray that this will become an issue of the past erelong, but it will take a collective effort to install change if we want anything of value to stick. Just as Newman preaches, I beg of you to do your part to stop homophobia today.