"Killdeer" by Nick Flynn

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 4, 2018   Killdeer   Nick Flynn

You know how it pretends to have a broken wing to lure predators away from its nest, how it staggers just out of reach . . . if, at this moment, you're feeling metaphorical, nest can be the whatever inside us that we think needs protection, the whatever that is small & hasn't yet found its way. Like us it has lived so long on scraps, on what others have left behind, it thinks it could live on air, on words, forever almost, it thinks it would be better to let the predator kill it than to turn its back on that child again, forgetting that one lives inside the other.            Copyright © 2018 Nick Flynn. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I generally have a problem with anthropomorphizing, with what's called the pathetic fallacy, forgetting that we are all part of the deeper mystery of the natural world. I think our minds are the limits of what is measurable. I sometimes think that everything is measurable, yet the fact that a killdeer does this dance fills me with unspeakable sadness and joy." —Nick Flynn   Nick Flynn is the author of five poetry collections, including I Will Destroy You, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2019. He teaches each spring in the creative writing program at the University of Houston. He splits his time between Houston, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York.   Photo credit: Alix Lambert Poetry by Flynn   My Feelings (Graywolf Press, 2015) "Heart's Needle" by W. D. Snodgrass "The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born" by Nicole Sealey "Museum" by Keith Leonard January Guest Editor: Kaveh Akbar   Thanks to Kaveh Akbar, author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Akbar and our other guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! 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

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