"The Same and the Other" by Gina Franco

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day December 3, 2019   The Same and the Other   Gina Franco

in each hand a disparate dream: in all dreams                                                                                    another far                too quiet: delirium                                                of the mask and God behind it: paradise had no winter like                                  this: this                is the one where the infant sleeps in the dirt                                                                                              the sleep of a dreamless mind so far from home                                                                     he no longer resembles anyone:                  his mother, thrown                                                   down, hunted, sick  with fear, sleeps next to him among the filth of animals: his father               watches (the imperative                                                               that love —not solace—                          demands), for there is no room for another                 sleeper: the desert will keep                                                                    bringing its mirage, no doubt:                 the child will walk in his shimmering garden, says    the wilderness, if you just get across:                                                                     motes in the light rise and rest:                  sole face left (remember you are dust)                                                                                        of our first lost image:            Copyright © 2019 by Gina Franco. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 3, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "The title of this sonnet is taken from Emmanuel Levinas' book, Totality and Infinity (Duquesne University Press, 1969). A few pages into the book, Levinas describes selfhood as emerging through the way the self exists in the world: 'The way of the I against the 'other' of the world consists in sojourning, in identifying oneself by existing here at home with oneself. In a world which is from the first other, the I is nonetheless autochthonous.' I was thinking about that word, 'autochthonous,' about the dream of belonging, of being 'at home' in the refuge of the world, even as 'I' move through and against it. I was thinking about how that movement is brutally restricted for those attempting to cross the border—how selfhood for a migrant person is regulated and denied; the cruelty of the border is that it enforces an uncompromising binary between the same and the other." —Gina Franco   Gina Franco's most recent book, The Accidental (University of Arkansas Press 2019), was awarded the CantoMundo Poetry Prize. She is a professor of English at Knox College and divides her time between Galesburg, Illinois, and Del Rio, Texas. Poetry by Franco   The Accidental  (University of Arkansas Press, 2019) "Still Life with Invisible Canoe" by Idra Novey "A Modest Proposal" by Joy Ladin "If You Must Hide Yourself From Love" by Christopher Salerno December Guest Editor: Paisley Rekdal   Thanks to Paisley Rekdal, author of Nightingale (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Rekdal about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. 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   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038