“One Pop Harem,” a bedtime story by Sam and Sam

Another “former student and present friend” (I’ve been blessed with several of them) and I wrote a book of poetry together last year, entirely by accident, in a dialogue written on paper plates, serenaded by the music of Spencer Ellliott.

We transcribed the poems and interviews, edited them, and self-published the collection as a chapbook: Poems by Sam and Sam. I consider it the best thing of mine in print to date.

We’re going to co-author another, much longer book this spring: Distance and Time. A philosophical and poetic improvisation with a co-narrative thread so thin it reads as one piece.

We decided to do this after realizing that, as we once did with paper plates, we like to weave dialogue together on Facebook chat. Here’s a bedtime story — One Pop Harem — we co-wrote today. Enjoy!

12:27pm

One pop harem

twice there was a billyrabbit that lived in a wood.

11:53am

for three years he waited for karats

11:54am

but then two days passed and he got very upset about the things he heard

11:55am

and so he left the rabbitfield

with a bag of cookies and extra fat snacks

12:01pm

and he ate, and ate, and ate and ate, until the snacks filled his eyelids

with drowsy dreams and sleep.

12:02pm

goodnight