The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Newman, Lesléa. October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard. Candlewick, September 25, 2012.

In October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman, Newman uses poetry to tell the story of the beating death of Shepard, a homosexual college student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, in October of 1998. Newman describes how Shepard was lured into a truck by his murderers and how those men left him to die. Her poetry uses the voices of animate and inanimate narrators to describe the impact of the crime on the community of Laramie, Wyoming and the entire country.

Newman uses her poems to tell Shepard’s story in a chronological form beginning when McKinney and Henderson lured Shepard out of a bar where they were drinking by pretending that they were homosexual. The story continues through the beating, the discovery of Shepard by the mountain bike rider, and Shepard’s death. She also includes the immediate reaction to the attack on Shepard and the knowledge that he had died to the trial during which McKinney and Henderson were found guilty of murder. The collection of poems ends with the voice of the buck rail fence, also the first voice featured in the poems. This fence describes how people continue to visit the spot where Shepard died to pay their respects.