So I somehow did not get around to writing about the two poems—"Frozen" and "Marred"—I had published in Random Sample Review back in August. I was really excited to have poems in a journal with so many Oregon State MFA Program graduates at the helm. I wrote both of these poems back when I was in grad school actually, so it felt all the more fitting that they ended up at Random Sample.
I don't remember much about writing "Frozen." All I recall is visualizing a small snow-covered cabin perched right next to a frozen lake. The whole poem came from that I'm pretty sure.
"Marred" I remember a lot more about. I wrote it for an experimental poetry workshop my first year of grad school. The idea was to create a three-dimensional poem. So whatever ended up on the page isn't really the original poem, though I'm happy with how it turned out. The original was made of puzzle pieces, using the layout of different towers of puzzles to create line breaks. Photos of the original are below:
