Ravinia 2019, Issue 7, Week 14

Considering Matthew Shepard Text authors and publication credits. All music composed by Craig Hella Johnson © 2016. 1. Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass © Compilation with additional text © Craig Hella Johnson / Please Come to Wyoming by John D. Nesbitt © by John D. Nesbitt. Used by kind permission. / Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass by Sue Wallis © by Estate of Sue Wallis. Used by kind permission. Quoting Prelude in C Major Book 1, Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach 2. Ordinary Boy © Craig Hella Johnson / From The Meaning of Matthew, by Judy Shepard p. 206. / + I Love Poem by Matt Shepard © by Judy Shepard. Used by kind permission. 3. We Tell Each Other Stories We Tell Each Other Stories © Craig Hella Johnson 5. The Fence (before) * Lesléa Newman 7. The Fence (that night) Material reproduced from Hildegard of Bingen from Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the “Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum” (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations), Second Edition, translated by Barbara Newman. © 1988, 1998 by Cornell University. Used by permission of the translator, Barbara Newman, and publisher, Cornell University Press. / The Fence (that night)* Lesléa Newman 8. A Protestor * Lesléa Newman / Additional italicized text by Craig Hella Johnson 10. Keep it Away From Me (The Wound of Love) by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson © 2015 by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson. Used by kind permission. / Gabriela Mistral 12. Fire of the Ancient Heart by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson © 2015 by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson. Used by kind permission. / ^Genesis 4:10 / #Rumi / ~William Blake. With thanks to Tom Burritt – percussion consultation and special arrangement 14. Stray Birds Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore 15. We Are All Sons (part 1) by Michael Dennis Browne © 2015 by Michael Dennis Browne. Used by kind permission. 16. I Am Like You / We Are All Sons (part 2) © Craig Hella Johnson 17. The Innocence by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson © 2015 by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson. Used by kind permission. 19. The Fence (one week later) * Lesléa Newman 21. Stars * Lesléa Newman / Dennis Shepard Statement to the Court 22. In Need of Breath Hafiz lyrics from “In Need of the Breath” from the Penguin (New York) publication The Gift: Poems by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky. © 1999 Daniel Ladinsky and used with his permission. 23. Deer Song by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson © 2015 by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson. Used by kind permission. 24. The Fence (after) / The Wind * Lesléa Newman 25. Pilgrimage * Lesléa Newman 26. Meet Me Here © Craig Hella Johnson 27. Even in This Rain by Michael Dennis Browne © 2019 by Michael Dennis Browne. Used by kind permission. 28. All of Us by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson © 2015 by Michael Dennis Browne and Craig Hella Johnson. Used by kind permission. / + from Divine Comedy , from the Paradiso by Dante , adapted by Michael Dennis Browne 29. Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass (reprise) Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass by Sue Wallis © by Estate of Sue Wallis. Used by kind permission. / Please Come to Wyoming by John D. Nesbitt © by John D. Nesbitt. Used by kind permission. Recitations I–X compiled from news reports and crafted by Craig Hella Johnson and Michael Dennis Browne. * All works authored by Lesléa Newman are from October Mourning: A Song For Matthew Shepard . © 2012 by Lesléa Newman. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA. Selections used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. © 2012. All Rights Reserved. “Introduction” from October Mourning: A Song For Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman On Tuesday, October 6, 1998, at approximately 11:45 p.m., 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a gay college student attending the University of Wyoming, was kidnapped from a bar by 21-year-old Aaron McKinney and 21-year-old Russell Henderson. Pretending to be gay, the two men lured Matthew Shepard into their truck, drove him to the outskirts of Laramie, robbed him, beat him with a pistol, tied him to a buck-rail fence, and left him to die. The next day, at about 6:00 p.m.—18 hours after the attack—he was discovered and taken to a hospital. He never regained consciousness and died five days later, on Monday, October 12, with his family by his side. One of the last things Matthew Shepard did that Tuesday night was attend a meeting of the University of Wyoming’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Association. The group was putting final touches on plans for Gay Awareness Week, scheduled to begin the following Sunday, October 11, coinciding with a National Coming Out Day. Planned campus activities included a film showing, an open poetry reading, and a keynote speaker. That keynote speaker was me. I never forgot what happened in Laramie, and around the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, I found myself thinking more and more about him. And so I began writing a series of poems, striving to create a work of art that explores the events surrounding Matthew Shepard’s murder in order to gain a better understanding of their impact on myself and the world. What really happened at the fence that night? Only three people know the answer to that question. Two of them are imprisoned, convicted murderers whose stories often contradict each other (for example, in separate interviews both McKinney and Henderson have claimed that he alone tied Matthew Shepard to the fence). The other person who knows what really happened that night is dead. We will never know his side of the story. This book is my side of the story. While the poems in this book are inspired by actual events, they do not in any way represent the statements, thoughts, feelings, opinions, or attitudes of any actual person. The statements, thoughts, feelings, opinions, and attitudes conveyed belong to me. All monologues contained within the poems are figments of my imagination; no actual person spoke any of the words contained within the body of any poem. Those words are mine and mine alone. When the words of an actual person are used as a short epigraph for a poem, the source of that quote is cited at the back of the book in a section entitled “Notes,” which contains citations and suggestions for further reading about the crime. The poems, which are meant to be read in sequential order as one whole work, are a work of poetic invention and imagination: a historical novel in verse. The poems are not an objective reporting of Matthew Shepard’s murder and its aftermath; rather they are my own personal interpretation of them. There is a bench on the campus of the University of Wyoming dedicated to Matthew Shepard, inscribed with the words He continues to make a difference . My hope is that readers of October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard will be inspired to make a difference and honor his legacy by erasing hate and replacing it with compassion, understanding, and love. October Mourning: A Song For Matthew Shepard . © 2012 by Lesléa Newman. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA. Considering Matthew Shepard was developed with the support of Conspirare. Please visit conpsirare.org to learn more about this project and learn more about the many individuals and organizations who support this work. Conspirare, The Matthew Shepard Foundation, and KLRU-TV, Austin PBS are partnering to ensure that Considering Matthew Shepard reaches as many people as possible on the stage and screen. The Matthew Shepard Foundation has provided ongoing support in outreach and project development. Conspirare and KLRU-TV, Austin PBS produced the Considering Matthew Shepard television special commemorating the 20th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s passing. The special is now available on demand at bit.ly/cmsdocumentary. Commissioned by Fran and Larry Collmann and Conspirare Dedicated to Philip Overbaugh SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 113