Thursday Poems: there is no flash by Metta Sáma

Inside Voice

Thursday has rolled around again, and as I frantically searched for a new poem to share with you all, I came across this one. I’ve never heard of Metta Sáma which, having now read some of her work, is strange to me because she is very much in the wheelhouse of the poets I enjoy – very Beat-esque.

Her form is very scattered, which I very much enjoy, because it infuses every word coupling with intense meaning, creating a kind of delirious map of words and ideas:

the eyes            fine tuned            perhaps

consciously       a first time offense

to focus on    cliché                              heaven

Do you see what I mean? It’s scattered but finely mapped. Careful, yet careless in its explosion. She explores the…

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The JanTerm Experience: “30 Days to Create”

I didn’t really know what I was getting into with this class, “30 Days to Create.” I didn’t like the sound of the other experimental Jan Term classes available to me, so I picked this one on a whim, having done so little research that I wasn’t even sure what I would be “creating” until much later. When I went in to class on the first day, it turned out that, in fact, I would be creating a book. Or 40,000-plus words towards one.

This was a daunting but not unpleasant surprise. On my first day, however, I found it very difficult to wring the required number of words out of my brain. Pumping out an essay on the Cold War is one thing, writing dialogue for imaginary characters is quite another. But now, as days in the class have passed, and as I have found myself sitting somewhere every…

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