When I was thinking about the Metaphysical Club, I too kept thinking about all the times I sat on my best friend Telly's porch listening to the Jimi Hendrix and "shouting philosophical axioms at the stars." Every Thursday night while I was at UDel, a group of five of us would get together to workshop poems. We started simply to toughen our skin a bit before we dealt with the criticism we were bound to receive from our Poetry Writing professor the following day. Nonetheless, five grew to seven, seven grew to 15, until we had more than 50 people, every Thursday night, littering the stairwell, the front porch, the back porch, the kitchen, the living room (we even put a chair in the fireplace). While it transitioned from being a workshop to more of an open mic night, we attracted people of all different backgrounds who were united by one thing: their love for language. Whether it was sang, slammed, read or rapped, words became our gateway to creativity.

Telly wrote a poem that I performed for Chuck's class last year called "Speech Therapy." In it, Telly (his real name is Ryan Shea) discusses growing up with a stutter and how his current use of slang was also viewed as an impediment by his speech therapist. He writes:

"What could I possibly gain from a dialect so rudimentary? To answer: I say word. I mean truth. I say word up like a command resurrecting these vertities, bringing back to life this dead language, I say word is bond. I am making a promise. One that will be kept. Swearin' 'cause these phrases are sacred oaths. I tell her I can code switch, appease those who cannot comprehend this vernacular, but this language nursed me. Baptized me creole and accepted my pigeon-toed tongue. Understand--slang is my taste buds blooming. Said that slang sure nuff is some fine poetry. I tell her it is from the heart and the hip and the hilted shoulders of our saunter. I tell her word is one resounding something: a person, a place, an idea, an action, amplifier, descriptor, modifier. I tell her word is one resounding YES! A light penetrating the shadows cast by our tongues. I tell her I always speak bad, but I always mean good."

I keep thinking of the line, "I tell her word is one resounding YES!" This make me think that as long as we're communicating, as long as the conversation is happening, and can be translated into something with meaning...we're all participating in a metaphysical club. Whether it's the Chinese food delivery man in NYC or the stoned kid on Telly's front porch, if we're talking, we're getting metaphysical.