October Mourning: A song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newman

On the night of October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard went with two young men for a ride in a pickup truck from a bar near the campus of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. It was the beginning of Gay Awareness Week on campus, and Matthew had just attended a meeting in regards to the upcoming week. Matthew was gay; by all accounts, he thought the two young men he was with were as well. They were anything but. They beat him, tied him to a fencepost just north of I-80 on the outskirts of town, and left him for dead. Shepard never regained consciousness and died a few days later at a hospital in nearby Fort Collins, Colorado.
Gay rights speaker and activist Leslea Newman's book is a tribute to the memory of Matthew Shepard and the legacy he has left in his wake. Shepard's brutal killing raised awareness of intolerance and bigotry, and put a face to all who have suffered bullying and injustice for their sexual orientation. Newman was the scheduled speaker at an event Shepard was planning to attend as Gay Awareness Week started; instead, Newman spoke to the gathered crowd about what can be done to keep something similar from happening again. She left the following day deeply impacted by what had happened; ten years later, she began crafting poems based on the events in Laramie. At just 112 pages including citations, this is a very short work you can read in an hour. This is a work of fiction, told in poetic verse, based on her own imaginings.  It's not hard to imagine her words as truth. October Mourning is a powerful statement about love, tolerance, and hope that something like this might never happen again.