“There is a hard and lucid quality in Shepherd's work. The words seem to be burned into the page with lasers, so precise and sharp-edged are they. . . . Shepherd's language is big and torqued with passion, and his images pile densely but are pulled through the text by a strong rope of narrative. . . . These poems are rich, wild, deep, and strong.”
--Booklist

"This is a book of unabashed lyricism and in-your-face contemporaneity, bristling with intelligence, challenging the reader to envision at once the panhandlers of Chicago and the princess of Troy, the iconic beauty of Narcissus of Antinous superimposed upon numinous black and white American bodies in a warily passionate embrace."

—Marilyn Hacker

"Angel Interrupted is written on water. Fluid, bright, and moving, fully aware of the fleeting beauty of the things of this world, these poems catch the light between lyric and myth."

—Susan Stewart