Deborah Brown, author of recent BOA release Walking the Dog's Shadow, for which she won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, was selected today by the Academy of American Poets to have her poem "Reprise" showcased on their website as the Poem of the Day. "Reprise," which is found in Walking the Dog's Shadow, speaks of love and fame and a history of ourselves as a people in the little things in which we find ourselves. Congrats to Deborah Brown, and points to the AAP for exceptional taste. Reprise by Deborah Brown Better than a lover's heart, the immortality of a name. Love versus Fama, the goddess, with her long purple nails, her sweeping cloak, her memories of Caeser, of Alexander, the wolves on seven hills. Even better than love, fame, for as long as there is illness. I see that if I had discovered Cushing's disease, I could have named it for myself. It's hard to maintain desire, that's part of it. But who first ate a grapefruit or tweezed a splinter or waved across the pampas at someone else, initiating the habit of the raised hand? (If you don't wave two hands, there could still be a weapon.) They're all forgotten, those heroes. How much do we know of Cushing, or care? What about Harvey, before whom our blood traveled uncharted paths? Or so I was told in seventh grade. I never wanted fame, so back to love, the desire for love, the one that costs everything, that shocks you when someone else casts a shadow on the map of the earth for the first time larger than your own. Walking the Dog's Shadow is available for purchase here.