The Living Writers Series poet Jamaal May visited on Oct. 24 in the Marano Campus Center auditorium.

May, author of poetry collections “Hum” and “The Big Book of Exit Strategies,” began the conversation discussing the topic of patterning. He moved into a dialogue concerning fractals.

“Patterning brings surprise and symmetry to our world,” he said. “Patterns shape the reality we live in.”

In his discussion, May pointed out that patterning is similar to a fractal, a shape that appears the same zoomed in and out, or as May put it, “the small becoming the large.”

May played a video showing the musical and visual imagery of a larger fractal broken down, revealing smaller images representative of the entire whole. Put together once more, it played a musical rendition of the same sounds in differing patterns.

He then spoke about layers of depth in writing. He mentioned that one line of poetry may say one thing, but the sentence itself may say something different. He also spoke about “snapshotting” in writing, which is a limited view of reality. 

“If you take a snapshot of something, you may say that is all there is,” May said. “What you see is not the true representation of what is there.”

May recited three of his poems throughout the event, including “There Are Birds Here: For Detroit,” “The Gun Joke,” and, “And For My Last Trick.”

The forum followed with a Q&A session. When asked about his writing styles, he said he writes about the “absurdity of the issues” of life. He gave the audience writing tips, encouraging them to do something they are not used to.

“Look for the patterns you don’t know you’re making,” May said. 

“Let your mind swerve.”

The event followed with a book signing in the Marano Campus Center book store and an author dinner.

According to his website, May was born and raised in Detroit. He has taught in both the Detroit Public School system and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program. A few of May’s honors include the Spirit of Detroit award and The Wood Prize for Poetry Award, along with fellowships from The Kenyon Review and The Stadler Center.

His first collection of poetry earned him the finalist position with the Tuft’s Discover Award and the NAACP Image Award. He currently co-directs OW! Arts with Tarfiah Faizullah.

Photo by Kassadee Paulo | The Oswegonian