PORTRAIT in POETRY

By Donald W Chance

Portrait in Poetry
by Donald W. Chance

DW Chance writes modern Beat-influenced free verse shaped by lived experience rather than theory. Marked early by loss and a nomadic military upbringing, he served in Vietnam and returned to a life that demanded rebuilding. Turning fully to poetry later in life, Chance has developed a poetic voice rooted in Beat tradition yet unmistakably his own.

Portrait in Poetry turns the lens inward. Across more than thirty poems arranged like a gallery walk, Chance examines violence, love, labor, aging, literary ghosts, and the surreal undercurrents of everyday life. Public moments expose private fractures; relationships flare and collapse; beer cans stack into pyramids; birthdays pass with only a dog and a space heater bearing witness. War, alcoholism, desire, memory, and absurdity move through the pages without cosmetic polish.

Plainspoken and direct, the voice is reflective yet edged with dark humor. The poems shift from brutal honesty to wry self-observation, from homage to irreverence, from stark realism to dream-logic drift. At its core, this collection is exactly what the title promises: a portrait that does not flatter and does not apologize - a life examined in fragments, held up for the reader to recognize something of their own reflection.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1711257672
• ISBN13: 9781711257679
• Release Date: November 2019
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 90 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"