Alternate Self-Portrait by Dean Rader

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 30, 2015   Alternate Self-Portrait   Dean Rader

One day   I will drift   into darkness   and know it   perhaps   the way a son   recognizes a mother   after he has returned   from many years   of travel   understanding   the new distance   is neither   beginning nor   end   only stillness            Copyright © 2015 by Dean Rader. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “There are a lot of self-portraits or faux self-portraits in my forthcoming book, Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry, as the title might suggest. In this poem, I had been thinking about unusual self-portraits, in particular portraits at the moment of death (rare) as opposed to those at the moment of birth (legion). And I began wondering if death were not something new but later something intimately known; the comfortable welcoming place we were before we were born.” —Dean Rader   Dean Rader is the author of Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry (Copper Canyon Press, 2016) and Landscape Portrait Figure Form (Omnidawn Chapbook Series, 2014). He teaches at the University of San Francisco and lives in San Francisco. Poetry by Rader   Landscape Portrait Figure Form (Omnidawn Chapbook Series, 2014) "Mouth Full of Grounds" by Justin Marks "Living Room" by David Yezzi "The Visitors of Night" by Frank Stanford Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038