Poet and professor Dean Rader’s latest collection, "Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry," examines how we construct our own identities everyday using pop culture, politics, and literature. He isn’t afraid to make a wide range of references in his work, from the Internet to Expressionist art. He spoke with KALW’s Jen Chien about where he draws inspiration for his poetry.
"I think people are afraid they're gonna get poems wrong. There's a kind of poetry angst out there, and people see a poem and they're like, ‘Ugh, I'm just not gonna understand that poem.’"
Dean Rader will be improvising new poetry with Copper Canyon Poets at Tell No One, a kind of round-robin poetry event, at Lit Crawl on Saturday, October 12.