Compression: Jesse Cheng
“Compression dressed me down, demanded that I take responsibility for the mess I’d strewn all over the past. I’ve worked to pack it all up into lighter, tighter bundles, ready for retrieval in the future. Compression is tough. It looks after me good. ” — Jesse Cheng
Compression: Jennifer Schomburg Kanke
“William Carlos Williams once said that a poem is like a machine, everything with its role to play and nothing unnecessary. In this sense, compression in poetry becomes a tricky thing because the reader must trust that the poet is not selling them a lemon, that if the reader is going to enter into the images of the poem that those images can take them somewhere, that the machine is fully operational. Thus compression is the most vulnerable art form, leaving the poet open to scrutiny and the reader susceptible to trickery.” — Jennifer Schomburg Kanke
Compression: Jared Joseph
“Small things live longest & without notice lodge in you. ” — Jared Joseph
Compression: Christopher James
“Any story is full of things that are unsaid. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it would be pretty tough to say everything. When I started writing I thought the trick, though, was to say as much as I could. Now, I think the magic happens when you unsay it all.” — Christopher James
Compression: Melinda Moore
“As our words are being compressed to abbreviations, our lives are being compressed to ones and zeroes—even our romances.” — Melinda Moore
Compression: Shaili Shah
“It’s amazing how a small circle of words send your mind in a tizzy of thoughts. The less said the better.” — Shaili Shah
Compression: Stewart Baker
“Compression in poetry is a matter of condensation—the pulp and meat of the subject squeezed into a tight space, so that the meaning coalesces on the top and drips from its sides. It is also cultural compression.” — Stewart Baker
Compression: Katharine Harris
“Words are great! Yes, but oh-so slippery…. To me, compression means holding fast to each word before it slips away. It also means holding each word accountable for how it gets along with its neighbors. Words, like people, are often tragically fallible in large numbers.” — Katharine Harris
Compression: Peter Tieryas Liu
“Hammering cities out of nails, rarefaction in inverse is the building of skyscrapers in limited spaces. Cities by nature compress cultures, languages, and beliefs, creating stratified semblances of order. Sometimes forced order results in a sublime chaos and a story that is locked together by vapors. Compression amazes by how much it can eke out of seemingly limited space. Just look out the window, or type away on the same screen page after page after page, close it, save into a tiny file.” — Peter Tieryas Liu
Compression: Charles Rafferty
“Compression is achieved by leaving things out—useless details, obvious emotions. This is why I prefer espresso. Its blackness tells me there is just enough water.” — Charles Rafferty
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Upcoming:
03/23 • Kenneth Pobo
03/30 • Roberta Allen
04/06 • Avril Shakira Villar
04/13 • TBD
04/20 • TBD
04/27 • TBD
05/04 • TBD
05/11 • TBD
05/18 • TBD
05/25 • TBD
06/01 • TBD
06/08 • TBD
06/15 • TBD
06/22 • TBD
06/29 • TBD
07/06 • TBD
07/13 • TBD
07/20 • TBD
07/27 • TBD
08/03 • TBD
08/10 • TBD
08/17 • TBD
08/24 • TBD
08/31 • TBD
09/07 • TBD
09/14 • TBD
09/21 • TBD