Zero Six Coffee Fix sits off Parkcenter Blvd. Inside, shiny, plastic streamers and star shaped balloons hang from the ceiling. Zero Six Coffee Fix is the home for Platypus Poetry nights where students and members of the Boise community can come, drop a poem they wrote into a hat and have it read aloud by someone else.
Zero Six Coffee Fix and Platypus Poetry nights symbolize what many students in Boise State’s creative writing program appreciate the most — community and creativity.
Boise State offers a competitive MFA program that only accepts 2-3 students a year in each section — fiction and poetry. One of those students, Adam Wagner, founded Platypus Poetry nights.
“On a very practical level, I go to Zero Six a lot,” Wagner joked when asked how Platypus Poetry came to be.
The manager of Zero Six, Kenna Mann, asked Wagner to start a poetry series. Wagner had been interested in starting a series so with Meredith Higgins, Platypus Poetry was born.
“Our idea with platypus poetry was always that it’s open mic style. It’s just, if you want to read, come up and read and you know, you don’t even have to have written the thing that you are reading to us, right?” Wagner said. “It’s a chance for anyone to have the experience, to get up and to read a poem aloud, which is kind of the ultimate way to experience a poem.”
While Platypus Poetry isn’t affiliated with the university, Wagner said the members of the MFA program helped spread the word about Platypus Poetry. Wagner praised the opportunities he’s been given through the MFA program, and the culture.
“There are plenty of opportunities to be had. And then equally, the faculty has been super supportive in crafting our own opportunities … I have a great interest in audio archives. And Boise State had one, and then that died in 2013 or so, I think they just stopped recording readings,” Wagner said. “So when I got here, I saw that and worked with the faculty to kind of revive that … So we helped form kind of a whole new opportunity that I could be a part of, and that will sort of extend beyond me.”
Even before the students get to the MFA program, Boise State offers a thriving undergraduate creative writing program.
Some well-known authors taught at Boise State in the past, and this year is no different. Cynthia Hand, co-author of the “My Lady Jane” series that was recently adapted to an Amazon Prime original T.V. show, the “Unearthly” trilogy and more teaches creative writing classes at Boise State.
Hand was one of the first MFA students to graduate from Boise State when the program first began. While working on her MFA, she discovered a love for teaching.
“I think at the time, I feel like the people in charge of the program were very concerned that teaching was going to take away writing, time or energy away from their students,” Hand said. “But for me, it really inspired me and taught me a lot to try to have to teach fiction writing. [It] really helped me to learn how to do it myself. So that was incredibly informative.”
While Hand moved back to Boise for her family, she said she felt like she could give back to the program.
“It feels a little bit like a full circle, and in that way and it’s really nice to be back and seeing how the program has grown and and the way that it’s changed, the way that it’s the same, it’s been fun to see it blossom into something when it was just a tiny, little bud at the beginning,” Hand said.
Elanor Spring, a senior double majoring in Creative Writing and French, switched into the undergraduate creative writing program after realizing she was “more passionate about poetry than politics”.
“My experience with the creative writing program has been wonderful. Because of it, I’ve made my dearest friends and fondest memories. I’ve been very lucky to work with the incredibly generous professors who have given me the chance to explore a wide variety of poetry,” Spring wrote in an email to The Arbiter.
Spring recently got the opportunity to travel with other students to a conference with the American Literary Translators Association conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin alongside other MFA students, a recent graduate, and Boise State professor Clyde Moneyhun.
“It was the perfect marriage for me between my majors and interests. It was so much fun to represent Boise State and talk with translators from all over about their work,” Spring wrote.
In addition to opportunities such as the conference and MFA readings, Spring treasures the culture and community built into the creative program.
“Despite my professed ability to write, it’s impossible to articulate all that this program has meant to me, all that it has done for me, and all that it continues to do for me and many students at Boise State,” Spring wrote. “The sense of community and warm, sincere friendship between everyone involved in creative writing is rare and unique. There are so many people that have had a hand in helping me, encouraging me and supporting me in my years here, and because of them, my life has become more vibrant with every semester.”
