What is the self?

 

A new anthology from Lisa Russ Spaar collects 100 contemporary self-portrait poems (one of them is from me). Here's an essay in the LARB from Spaar that continues to think through what the notion of the self might mean in these times; a choice excerpt: "It is time to think consciously and proactively about our selves in relation to the world. And as Americans, especially, who have historically prized our inalienable rights, agency, privacy, and individual freedoms, this pandemic offers a challenge to our selfishness."