Dog and Moonby Kelly ShepherdPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9781779400383 Quirky contradictions, interconnectedness, and more swerves than the North Saskatchewan—Kelly Shepherd’s Dog and Moon delivers an audacious selection of poems that’ll make you think and possibly cheer, thanks to wordplay concerning the natural world, domesticity, etymology, poetry workshops (“Describe snow to someone who has never experienced it before”) and metaphors against a backdrop of shadows, mirrors, moons, frogs, feathers, Canadian writers and “concrete-coloured snow.” In this third poetry collection, Shepherd’s used the ancient ghazal form for inspiration, but he gives his couplets a contemporary twist with reverberations, koan-like riddles, a dash of politics and lines that had me smiling. Even titles are a hoot: “The Poetics of Space Heaters,” and “If Your Eyes Weren’t Prisms, Would You Notice?” Prediction: this book will earn awards. Firstly, the pairings and unusual juxtapositions. The book begins: “A man walks out of a forest. What walks out of him?” In the second poem: “Fish grow leafy fins and tails. Trees grow fish-shaped leaves./The trees, water, fire of childhood.” The poet takes two things, ie: fish and trees, then throws in a random third element, ie: “fire of childhood.”…
