Sei allem Abschied voran: half
a line from Rilke’s Die Sonettean Orpheus as my motto,
I rehearsed my elegiac art(“be in advance of all parting”)
and won, I thought, with each song deeper,until I stood before the keeper
in whom I’ve come to recognize myself.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2011).
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This poem originally appeared in the July/August 2011 issue of Poetry magazine
Amanda Jernigan is a poet, playwright, essayist and editor. Her first collection is Groundwork: poems (Biblioasis, 2011); her poems also appear in Undercurrents: New Voices in Canadian Poetry, edited by Robyn Sarah (Cormorant Books, 2011). She lives and works in Canada with her partner, the artist John Haney.
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