“This is a Photograph of Me” is a poem in two parts: a description of a photograph that portrays a landscape with a lake, and a parenthetical aside that illuminates that description to reveal the position of the “me” from the title. The objective, if indistinct, landscape becomes startlingly personal by the end of the poem due to the information contained within the parentheses, a reality that lurks “under the surface” (Line 18).

The first three stanzas establish what can and cannot be seen in a photograph “taken some time ago” (Line 1). That temporality is not defined by any specific date, year, decade, or century. Its ambiguity is enhanced by the fact that the subject “seems to be / a smeared / print” (Lines 2-4). Both aspects give a sense of physical age and indicate an indistinct image. The photograph seems to be black and white, as the speaker notes it is made up of “blurred lines and grey flecks / blended with the paper” (Lines 4-5). This suggests a faded quality, again making it seem antique or taken with an unsteady hand. The image is nebulous.

The speaker then suggests the viewer “scan [to] see” (Lines 6-7) the fuzzy image. They guide us through the composition, moving left to right before zeroing in on the middle of the picture. In “the left-hand corner” (Line 7), there is “part of a [fir] tree” (Line 8) that might be “balsam or spruce” (Line 9). This fir seems to be closest to the photographer or in the foreground. “To the right” (Line 10) is a “small frame house” (Line 12) that rests “halfway up / what ought to be a gentle / slope” (Lines 10-12). Thus, the reader understands the placement of concrete geographical markers—fir, slope, home. “In the background there is a lake” (Line 13), beyond which are “low hills” (Line 14). This direction shifts the reader’s attention to the body of water that lies between the fir, slope, house, and hills, exactly in the center of the photo.

Although the reader understands the layout of the landscape, it is still unclear how this is a photograph of the speaker, as indicated by the poem’s title. Typically, when describing photos of people, we identify those pictured first and only then go on to explain the background scenery. To clarify this, the speaker adds a parenthetical aside, revealing their presence. First, the speaker adds temporal specificity. Although the year, decade, and century remain unknown, we learn “the photograph was taken / on the day [the speaker] drowned” (Lines 15-16). The speaker thus claims to be pictured at “the center / of the picture” (Lines 17-18)—their dead body is “just under the surface” (Line 18). Now, the speaker becomes both the center of the photograph and a marginalized victim—a key presence that is also submerged and cannot be seen. The parentheses—typically a way to bracket off an unimportant detail, such as the kind of fir tree the photograph pictures—now become an instrument of shock and a more nefarious kind of occlusion. Further, the speaker notes that their physical materiality remains ambiguous: Because of water causes “distortion” (Line 23) to light, their body changes position and size. It is a challenge “to say where / precisely” (Line 20) the body is, or to dictate “how large or small” (Line 21).

The revelation of the speaker’s body and its amorphous quality add to the earlier “blurred” (Line 4) picture we have of the landscape. Regardless of how careful our “scan” (Line 6), we could never have observed the hidden “me.” But the final lines dispute this, attributing our failure to find the speaker to a lack of trying or patience: “[I]f you look long enough / eventually / you will be able to see me” (Lines 24-26). The ghostly speaker accuses us of being too distracted by the framing landscape to wonder why the lake is centered in this photograph. The revelation of the body transforms the image from poorly executed photograph to documentary evidence—though we don’t know whether we have just learned of a crime. Readers must now evaluate the relationships between the objects in the photo. Did the speaker drown by accident or on purpose? By someone else’s hand or their own? Did they live in the house or were they a visitor? Was the photograph taken in remorse, mourning, or triumph? The questions go unanswered, but their point is forcing the reader to focus on the person who became a corpse. 

The revelation recolors the seeming nostalgia of the landscape original description. The “thing that is like a branch” (Lines 8) becomes an ominous harbinger. The smear becomes a taint over the whole. By the end of the poem, the reader is forced to wonder why the “slope” (Line 12) to the house that “ought to be gentle” (Line 11) wasn’t. They also must look differently at other peaceful bodies of water, wondering what tragedy is lurking beneath the surface. The speaker’s aside dominates the poem, the parentheses no longer capable of hiding disaster.