At 5 p.m. on Nov. 15, 2024 at Buffalo Street Books in downtown Ithaca, Miklos Mattyasovszky and Sam Samakande of the Cornell MFA in Creative Writing program could be seen reciting their fiction and poetry respectively to an eager group of writing enthusiasts. I was among the crowd of young and old people alike who gathered to listen to these talented writers. I had to trek down from campus on foot but it was absolutely worth it. I sat through the event with ears that devoured every word spoken, every image described and every idea proposed. In all honesty, while I do like fiction, I generally lean towards indulging in poetry (as well as writing it), but Mattyasovszky’s story was among the best I have ever read or heard. Samakande’s poetic works were extraordinary as well. Afterwards, I took the opportunity to uncover more about the voices of the event; Mattyasovszky and Samakande had wonderful details to share with me (slight edits for clarity were made with regard to the responses).
CP: Tell me more about who you are as a writer, what you enjoy writing, your inspirations, etc.
MM: After 10 years of working in technology, specifically 3D printing and AI, my perspective is definitely influenced by witnessing technology’s cultural, political and social impact. Much of my fiction contains speculative elements, but I’m influenced by squarely realist authors like Jonathan Franzen, Jane Smiley (usually a realist) and Annie Proulx in equal measure to speculative authors like Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler. I also take a lot of cues from mythological and anthropological texts, as I think the language of myth is frequently quite appropriate to address the effect of technology on global society.
SS: As an autobiographical poet, my work examines themes such as mental illness, love, connection, the erotic, family and identity—what I call the landscapes of feeling and belonging in my life. It considers what it looks like to inhabit my particular body, the complexities of belonging in relationships and in the world as an embodied being existing with depression. My work is rooted in a poetic of “affect,” attentive to the ways we belong with others, along with how we affect and are affected by others. I am drawn to the investigative nature of poetry, the quality of turning things over and over in my mind, scrutinizing a feeling, idea or experience from multiple different lights and angles. Some of the works that have been important to me along my journey are Lauren K. Alleyne’s Difficult Fruit and Honeyfish, Ada Limon’s The Carrying, Eugenia Leigh’s Bianca and Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows, Tiana Clark’s I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, Francesca Bell’s What Small Sound, among others.
CP: How do you like the MFA community and Creative Writing/English department at Cornell?
MM: I have found the MFA community to be very supportive and thoughtful. My cohort, the other MFA candidates and the creative writing lecturers are all extremely diverse in their views and approach to writing — to say nothing of the faculty, which contains amazing writers with totally different perspectives. I was an undergrad here — I graduated in 2013 — so it’s felt like a little bit of a homecoming for me. But the MFA program has also changed and grown a lot since then.
SS: I have been enjoying getting acquainted with and finding my place in the MFA community here at Cornell. Because the cohort is so few people, the Creative Writing/English department is able to be so conscientious in the way they support us. The office staff is incredibly helpful and the professors, who are also brilliant writers and thinkers, are generous with their guidance and attention to our work. As students, I feel like we have also been able to build strong friendships and a strong sense of trust with each other, which is important because sharing work and learning from each other are both such vulnerable things.
CP: What do you enjoy most about the Reading Series event and how was the event for you?
MM: It was a dream come true! I remember being an undergrad at Cornell and thinking about how cool it would be to be in the MFA program, doing the reading series … and here I am. The best part about the reading series was getting to hear the work of my fellow writers, especially the poets — with whom I do not get to share a workshop — and feeling the support of the second-year MFA students who host. I’m really grateful to Buffalo St. Books for hosting the event and to our coordinator Meegs Longacre as well as the English Department’s events coordinator, Ilyana Castillo, for setting the readings up for us.
SS: I found the Reading Series to be such a beautiful way for the Creative Writing/English Department to honor the new MFAs. As a poet, I was most looking forward to listening to the fiction writers, as we don’t have that many opportunities to encounter each other’s work across genres. Also, experiencing each of us get our opportunity to present ourselves professionally as actual writers, not just students in the same workshop or program, to be seen as we see ourselves and to be re-introduced to each other through the lens of our work was thrilling. I had such a newfound appreciation and admiration for my peers.
I also prompted them to share an appreciation for some of their fellow students; Mattyasovszky recommends that you read Susanna Cupido’s novel Window of Tolerance and Samakande has recently been drawn to Bridget Huh’s poem titled “Touching the Verb” and is looking forward to her book Fugue Body, which is forthcoming next year with Vehicle Press.
I could go on and explain what the story Mattyasovszky read was about or the themes of Samakande’s poems, but that would be taking the fun out of it for you. The next time the First-Year Reading Series pops up, go check it out! You’ll surprise yourself with how much you enjoy it.
Caidan Pilarski is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at [email protected].