Discovering Mortality

Bruce Lader

Trespasser

He comes in my room without knocking,
opens the shade. My father would have
killed me for that. He should know better
than wake me up and risk my anger. Dad look
how deep the snow is. It hasn’t entered
his lazy mind that I was in my office
again till four o’clock working accounts,
then couldn’t fall asleep. Maybe if
I get out of bed, look out the window,
he’ll be satisfied and go away,
let me snooze the rest of this Valium.
Then I will have the strength to work, and give him
things my father only dreamed of.
Those are footprints where he’s
been prowling. The mess is piled like pages
over everything. Dad, I’m tracking down
a dangerous animal. What can I do
differently than my father who was always
too tired from tailoring to welcome me?
On the back of a business card,
I write Detective, my boy’s name, a by-line
that sounds official. He throws his arms around me,
runs off into silence, a shadow stalking
a shadow who terrifies him, like the stranger
in the prosperity of his own house.

isbn 1-59661-026-3
80 pages/$15

The poems in Discovering Mortality are all focused on the most significant subject any poet can engage with: down-to-earth, day-to-day lived human experiences. With crystal clear language and subtle craftsmanship, Lader dramatizes relationships and conflicts of childhood (including children who are psychologically and socially at risk), the nuclear family, marriage, sex, death, war, and social concerns. The poems are imbued with Lader’s reverence and unsentimental love for his subjects as well as the mystery of our interactions with the natural world.
—Gerald Barrax,
author of From a Person Sitting in Darkness, Emeritus Professor of English at North Carolina State University

Vivid evocations of childhood, wry and pointed humor, pungent details, and telling episodes—Bruce Lader’s first book of poetry contains enough strong material for several volumes. Discovering Mortality is a maiden voyage not maidenly in the least!
—Fred Chappell

Bruce Lader’s Discovering Mortality presents an array of fully realized poems on everything from family and marriage to world issues, Jewish culture, and teen street culture. The thread that holds the volume together is lyric honesty, a poet expert in remaking his own experiences into an artful gift for readers.
—Joe Benevento,
poetry editor, Green Hills Literary Lantern; author of Holding On and The Odd Squad

Bruce Lader’s poems have appeared in Poetry, New Millennium Writings, The New York Quarterly, Margie, International Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Poet Lore, and the Poetic Voices Without Borders anthology, among other publications. He is the founding director of Bridges Tutoring, Inc., a non-profit organization in Raleigh, North Carolina, educating students from diverse cultures.