October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard is a heartbreaking poetry collection from noted writer and LGBT activist Leslea Newman about the 1998 murder of twenty year old Matthew Shepard.  Shepard was abducted from a bar in Laramie, Wyoming, beaten and robbed, tied to a fence where he bled and cried for eighteen hours until a passing biker found him, and died after laying in a coma for five days.  Shepard was targeted by the two young men for being gay.  The poems are told from various points of view, the fence, a doe who laid beside him that night, his attackers, his family and friends. Absolutely beautiful poems about a horrendous hate crime.  Must read.