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5 years ago (2020), I finished my Master of Fine Arts in poetry at Miami U. It was cool, I had a good time, and I wrote this thesis called "Super Bloom" whose publication was delayed for 5 years. I chose to do that delay because it gave me time to send the poems out for publication at other places first. Problem is: 2020 was a... time... and really what I ended up presenting as my thesis was something I didn't much believe represented my poetic voice and style through and through.

There are a few poems in it that I can re-read and go "I was onto something here," but the majority of it I've never wanted to share with family and friends because I perceived it as too inorganic. I am grateful that I had time and room to experiment even if those experiments, in my mind, came out gooey-raw and slick with a global malaise (not in a good way). However, when it comes down it, that conclusion to my collegiate experience was personally embarrassing and demoralizing way in a way that caused me to totally turn my back to poetry, especially my own.

This past summer the delay expired and "Super Bloom" was released unto the world like a moist clump of dead dandelions from a tipped-over garbage bin. And though no one would likely ever have the reason or motivation to read it front to back, and I wouldn't want them to even if they did, I couldn't leave it there curled up, confused, and lonely in some dusty corner of the internet where it would live out its musty existence. Therefore, this page, superbloom∞, is my own personal repeat, rework, revisit.

Over the last few months, I have tweaked and/or overhauled a bunch of poems from my original-manuscript-as-thesis. Not all poems have been carried over into this new version -- some I'd like to come back to on future projects (I'm looking at you, "Tanka for Being Too Far Away to Visit My Grandma in the Hospital"). I've also added poems that make sense tonally and conceptually: poems written in the back-then, and poems written in the years-since. Where relevant, poems are followed by small explanations (and credits for the couple that were actually published); I'd love to expand on this down the line.

Speaking of, don't expect this page to remain exactly the same forever either. Now that these poems will live their poem-lives on this site, one of my intentions is to continue appending and shuffling to my heart's content. That's always been a part of my process, so it feels very true to have a place where I can slosh about, pluck on a whim, demo absurdity and honesty side-by-side w/o the pressure for trying to get it to end up anywhere else.