Marissa Spalding is full of passion; passion for poetry, for writing, for music, and for the simplicity found in life. She grew up in the D.C. Metro area and while she currently resides in Chicago, the east coast still holds weight for her. She is currently a graduate student at Columbia College Chicago and will receive her MFA in poetry May of 2006. She has also taught composition courses while at Columbia. Her pedagogy consists of a very student oriented, discussion based environment. For Marissa, poetics is a state of mind, not something that can be simply taught. If given carte blanche in her life, she would live in the Galapagos Islands among giant tortoises. For now, however, she is content with breathing life into her current surroundings.

Sitting in the belly of a swan

I am the victim of seduction. These flavors eat like
nothing else. The warp of wood that wraps around
the hillside radiates splintered. A promise of
time travel precedes our thoughts. How far can we
travel? We had come to shore drunk, unable to
guarantee our vessel safe return. He gave us a
swan, a peddle boat, a rickshaw of water taxi. I
told you to take your shoes off. Complication saw
us off. We drifted. Language reduced to craters in
lulls of lake water. Our calves, pounding harder
than the hearts in our chests, harder than
staring into a radiant sun.