Metta Sáma’s the year we turned dragon (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs 2016) is the first third of a larger book that follows a group who travel with “Leader” across the globe in order to build a new world, one that is the other side of human, that is dragon. Their leader consumes the detritus of humans—skin, hair, nails, blood, urine, feces—to aid this transformation and convinces the followers that Dragon is the true nature of the self. The followers’ individual identities are erased; stripped of their names & families, the followers collectively narrate their experiences following the leader who seemed, in the beginning, like a compassionate messiah and later, a brutal prophet. the year we turned dragon asks the questions: what are the dangers of blind faith, of following one person’s vision, of living a life without doubt.

Metta Sáma is author of le animal & other creatures (Miel 2015), After “Sleeping to Dream”/After After (Nous-Zōt-Press 2014), Nocturne Trio (YesYes Books 2012) and South of Here (New Issues Press 2005). Metta has served as guest poetry editor of North American Review, Black Camera, RædLeaf Poetry- India and is on the Advisory Board of Black Radish Books on the Board of Directors at Cave Canem. She co-founded, with Darlene Kriesel, Artists Against Police Brutality/Cultures of Violence and is a fellow at Black Earth Institute.