Rediscovered Sheep takes its origin generations ago when an ancestor of John B. Lee began to raise Lincoln sheep in Ontario. John B. may never take up his inheritance as Master of the Flock, but his understanding of sheep husbandry is woven into the woolly fabric of his work. The first poems in Rediscovered Sheep are about real modern-day shepherds and actual sheep. Then the sheep get loose. They spill out into human roles -- policeman, guest speaker, ballerina -- which they occupy exuberantly and sometimes with a disquieting naturalness. Rediscovered Sheep is a realistic/fantasy pastoral for contemporary times, with the true pastoral's wise innocence that never forgets the wolf.
