Mathew Shepard...RIP.

I had almost forgotten how horrific the world can be and then this arrives in our library at school. The murder of Mathew Shepard is one of the most heinous hate crimes in recent memory. Sadly, the world he left has not necessarily improved. However, the fact that we can have gender neutral bathrooms and Gay Pride and LGBT diversity in our schools must mean we are trying to do something right. Although some of these poems seem trite on their own, the book as an artifact is, at times, as powerful as The Book Thief.  Read the introduction, the poems, the footnotes, the explanations...read it all, then read it again. The brutality and the loneliness of his death is heart wrenching.