David Shepard started dabbling with poetry at 19 while traveling overseas. Upon his return he trained in music and acting in New York City. He began writing seriously in 2015 while he was practicing psychiatry in the Colorado state prisons. He retired in 2017 after 43 years in medicine. Dr. Shepard's poems span many styles and themes. They explore life,aging and death, in terms alternately realistic and existential. Mortal Man's Journey Toward the Light encompasses both poems of introspection and poems looking out at the world, a duality that reflects the viewpoints of the prisoners he treated as much as it does his own reality. A free event though donations to Nevei Kodesh are accepted