Season Kam is a psychotherapist, writer, and lover of stories of all kinds. She was born in Singapore and now calls Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario home. Her work has been published in Imprint Magazine and Stirring: A Literary Collection. When she isn’t chasing her kids around, she can usually be found on a long walk.
You can read her poem Brackish Water in the October 2025 issue.
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context?
This poem began a few years ago as a curiosity about openings—moments of possibility: to stay or to go; to be open to connection or to walk away; to step into the unknown, or to stay in familiar water. When writing this, I was curious about what is uniquely possible at the opening, before we fully leave something, and before we arrive somewhere else.
During this time, I had recently become a parent, and as my spiritual self and the entire world that it occupied was changing, I found myself opening to needs and beliefs I’d never had before. Staying closed to expansion felt safer, but following the opening felt inevitable, and true. Being in-between was terrifying.
When a family member died earlier this year, in my grief, time stood still. The afternoon sun on my bike ride, an unexpected joy, and heartache all came into sharp focus—and there was nothing to do but witness it. At the threshold between life and death, there was still so much beauty, pain, mystery, and grace.
One of the early images that came to me as I explored this idea of openings was of an estuary, the tidal mouth of a river where it meets the ocean It’s a place that’s dynamic, full of ecological potential and diversity, and also fragile, even inhospitable. Not unlike a birth canal, an estuary is a place of movement. The fish that live in its waters migrate between fresh water and saltwater, making home in both places, and the place where they meet, over the course of their life span. Movement, for these species, is the essential element of home.
Is there a collection of poetry that never leaves your (perhaps metaphorical) nightstand?
I discovered Kathleen Flenniken a few years ago, and have returned to her collection, Post Romantic, numerous times. David Whyte’s work, particularly Consolations, is also never far from my nightstand.
How do you revise your work?
I have seasons where I am at different stages of the architecting process. I try to write everything down, and then build—piecing different images or ideas together—when a theme or question strikes me.
My first reader is my partner, Jonathan, who has heard and read many half-finished concept poems and very, very bad drafts.
When I’m ready to commit to a draft, I write it out and edit by hand, then type, print, and edit by hand again. I may do that a few times. Sometimes I go away for a weekend to workshop it at this stage.
Once I have a draft I’m mostly happy with, I ask for feedback from peers. II aim to have 3-4 people read my work before I submit, and usually that leads to a version of a poem I’m happy to put out into the world.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
Creative success, to me, feels like making something uniquely and recognizably yours—writing from just your voice—and having others recognize their own in it, too.
It’s a miracle when other people are moved to feel something of their own through something I’ve written. I really believe that being able to connect to our hearts and what moves us—even when accompanied by fear—is what it means to be alive and whole. If my poetry can do that for one person, that’s a creative success to me.
We love the artistic underdogs, the experimentalists, the lovely weirdos — who or what might you get creative joy or energy from that others might not be aware of yet?
I get a lot of creative energy from being alone. I’m a therapist in my day job, and my children are young, so my mind and days are often filled with (beautiful) stories that aren’t mine. Making space to come back to myself and create from that place is a discipline I’m learning.
One of my favourite things in the world is seeing people do what they were meant to do. Passion multiplies passion. That’s especially true when I take in performance art, but it’s also true when I see my son’s kindergarten teacher dressed up for the first day of school with a skirt with crayons all over it and a giant “BACK 2 SCHOOL” headband. Or when a musician friend talks about her craft, or when I see my friend’s face light up when he talks about how much being an uncle means to him. There’s something about that kind of alignment—when it fits on the inside and on the outside—that’s really satisfying. Getting to witness anyone doing what they really love gives me a lot of creative joy and courage.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
I take a lot of inspiration from nature and the wisdom of the natural world, so often a poem, for me, begins on a walk. Occasionally, there is a theme or question I’m exploring personally that guides the imagery (like in “Brackish Water”.) I told my six-year-old once that a poem tells the story of a feeling, so sometimes a great poem begins with utter, earth-shattering devastation.
I think a poem can begin anywhere so long as we’re open to its knocking.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
I try to read poetry daily. Usually this happens at night, though I’d love to have a poem to begin and end my day. I follow poets online and try to read broadly and slowly.
I’m part of a poetry group that meets monthly, often to workshop our poems, sometimes to respond to a writing prompt, but we always read something aloud together. It’s a delight to read poetry with other people. It reminds me that that’s how poems are meant to be experienced—with a collective sigh of satisfaction.