Aimee Herman's Blog, page 32

thank you to culture designers for asking me questions….

LEARNING AIMEE HERMAN’S BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE

article by Jacklyn Janeksela in Culture Designers

Where words meet wounds, truth abounds; this is where Aimee Herman meets us. She writes about and says what we’d like to say but never say– we are weak where she is strong. She is brave and beautiful; exposing the innermost parts of being a woman, of being queer, of being human. There is a call for us to be more human and be less absorbed; to be more of a platform for change and contact. There are lines that hit the core, the core of us we try to ignore or sweep away; she is the catalyst for our confrontation. Or at least she will be if you listen to her.

When she responded to my email, with such steamy sincerity, I begin to believe that artists do actually still have a community. I began to recognize our humanity again, thankfully. As a result of our interaction, I look forward to being more human.

Want to dig deeper into what makes Aimee Herman? Go thee forth, poets and people.

What aspect of art feels the most authentic to you?

The most authentic part of art is breathing. I find that when I try to make it a certain way, it is no longer mine. It is no longer what I intended it to be. Sort of like breaths. Breathing just…happens, right? But then there are those moments when I am extremely aware of them. And I feel like suddenly I am forcing them or fumbling them into a different pace. Art is most authentic when it is permitted to just…happen.

What is your most cherished belonging?

My books. And please don’t make me choose one. Because although I love all my Bukowskis, I do love my “Testosterone Files” and Kathy Ackers and Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen” blew my mind into pieces I am still finding remnants of all over my apartment.

Where do you feel the strongest as a woman and as an artist?

I don’t really identify as a woman these days. More like a human, still gathering up my vocabularies. I feel strongest when I write a poem that feels like reclaimed skin. Or the discovery of a new bone behind other bones. I feel strongest when I forget about my anxieties and notice the brilliance of the Atlantic ocean or a moon so round, my cheeks and belly get jealous. My art is fueled by all these “notices”.

What is your art process like?

Again, I go back to breath and breathing. When I write, I bleed and bellow and procrastinate and it is messy and slow and breathtaking and boring. There are moments of furious typing and carving up of notebook pages. Even when I was using drugs, I always preferred sobriety when writing; unlike most times, I really revel in being deeply present when I write.

What is your vision/mission for your art?

I want to hear myself; I want others to hear me. I want to break through the walls of my discomfort and find peace through my writing. I think about times I have watched performances and the ones who have affected me the most have simultaneously made me uncomfortable. These are the moments where I was called to recalculate myself. I want to do this on the page and when I perform. I want to reconfigure gender and sexuality and the ways in which bodies and poetics can practice out loud.

Do you gravitate towards certain words or sounds, certain rhythms?

My writing is deeply bodily, so the words I often use are just that: bones, skin, suture, fissure, scar. I love the rhythms of a peeled-apart scab and the rush of colors called bruise or burnt back bend. I don’t curse a lot in real life, so the ones that find their way in my poems, tend to make it there because there is no other way to say it.

Do you prefer to work in the morning or the evening?

Yes.

Who do you study and/or admire?

I am reading and studying “Bluets” by Maggie Nelson right now. Before that, I was devouring “The Racial Imaginary” co-edited by Claudia Rankine. This book dripped into me for days and when I was done, I wanted to weep and scream and rip pages and break down walls. I am still feeling the impact of each writer’s essay. I admire humans who can write about their lives in ways that open windows and conversations. I study bridges and breaks in the sky. I admire gender warriors (those who shatter my eyes with all the ways one can exist): Max Wolf Valerio. Ivan E. Coyote. Kate Bornstein. I admire those who can write about sex in ways I can understand and feel. I am just looking to feel.

What can you say about writing today or writing yesterday?

I can say that today, more and more spaces are being built for words that are less academic and more about experimentation of sound, disfigurement of form and cross-genre hybrid. Today, it is less about the gender you are and more about the heft of your words. That said, the publishing market is still skewed in many ways. But people are finding ways to get their words out there: self-publishing is a powerful avenue to take and no less important. I have mixed feelings about the internet and over-accessibility. But I am also deeply old-school with my non-fancy phone and extreme hesitance to social media myself. I am quite sure I was born in the wrong time. Writing is always going to be about the words. Language. And a sense of connecting. Whether it is with hundreds of people or millions of people or just simply (re)connecting with your self.

What is on the horizon?

For me? I am working on a new manuscript of poems. My second book, meant to wake up feeling (great weather for MEDIA) came out last year and I am so, so proud of it. I’ve also been working on a long story for seven years or so; I’d like to gift myself more time to work on it.

Find more of her work here.

WORDS BY Jacklyn Janeksela 

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", culture designers, jacklyn janeksela, meant to wake up feeling, poetry

religion of the outdoors

You tell them you are a recovering atheist. The urge to believe in things gets louder each day but here you are in the flatlands where landscape is brown and green and all you want to believe in is the ability to persist.

You speak to a man called Ernie about a religion designed by a persian with the foundation of one god amongst all, but if you told him of your homo, he’d tell you to find a way out of yourself.

You become obsessed with the wings of flies and the ones who you slur into death from the smokey musk of your incense, which you are now burning several times a day.

If you ever moved here, you tell someone, you’d work in the library. Surround yourself by the flavor of books and spend your hours alphabetizing and reshelving histories.

You are haunted by the sound of your “hippie” being pulled away from your skin. An other wants to know if you are inside an identity crisis. You say, no, then yes then……I just don’t which word I am anymore.

You decide to live inside the story you are writing and feel the gentle weight of your protagonist’s hand slowly rub your back. Reminds you to remain.

You study the sky and its pattern of flight. Its pattern of storm and ominous. In this moment, the thunder gathers. Last night it shocked the sky in pink currents.

You marinate your tongue in various dialects of red wine. Rosé. Merlot. Cabernet. Slur.r.r.r.r.r

Then, the rain arrives again. Tornadoes warn, so you and the other poets and painters search out a safe spot in your “home” which is only guts, no skin. Sky is a dangerous blue. This rain, overweight and angry, is romantic. You want to make love, but you are barely ever nude here, except to check for ticks and bites.

You take cover. Create a tent from poems and memories. See how far it gets you.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, meant to wake up feeling, poem, surviving, tornado, weather, wilderness, writing life

the caloric intake of a memory

(first published by great weather for MEDIA)

Does this memory make me look fat?

You ask yourself this, posing into your dusty mirror—slightly warped—purchased for less than twenty dollars at bodega four blocks away from your apartment—two apartments ago.

But really, she speak out loud, take a look at this excess? I’m sucking it in in in, can you see the ribs of my memory now?

You start each day the same. Peel skin out of bed, warm enough to be called a coffin or mouth, but it is just a bed, sheets purchased by your lover, color of August sky minutes before thunder (shade of sheets, not your lover).

You engage in two minutes of yoga-inspired plank position, where you hold your body up in push-up mode, similar to push up without the up down rotation. During these two minutes you try to rid yourself of the impressions of dreams suctioned to your thighs. You just know that during your sleep you gained at least three ounces from that nightmare inspired by your childhood, ages eleven through eighteen.

You breathe. But even this concerns you, as you find with each inhale you are breathing in dust and dead skin and that’s got to weigh something.

You exhale and slowly lift yourself back to ground, which you notice has not been swept or mopped in at least a month. You look at the gangs of hair haunting your floorboards. That’s got to count for something, you think. You subtract two numbers from your total weight for the detached strands and skin cells no longer weighing on you.

Coffee comes next.

Water is free, so anything predominantly made with it must be okay, you think. You think.

Suddenly, a memory. Of your mother. Sitting at kitchen table no longer in possession of any of your family members (sold/given away….when…garage sale?…). She is hunched over in night clothes—oversized T-shirt and thin shorts—drinking instant coffee out of mug that could have been called bowl, color of white and stains. You are across from her, fidgeting with your body: fingernails, hair, plague of your protruding secrets.

This memory is unclear, so it contains less than one hundred calories.

But then you begin to ponder longer. You cannot recall if this is the morning you head off to school with suicide note in back pocket for later.

You cannot remember if this is the day before you slip your tongue down ___’s throat for the first time solidifying your queer.

Was this the morning you ran away, to that park, the one with your initials dug into two benches, the one where your mother confessed years later to fearing she’d find you hung from a tree?

Suddenly, this memory has doubled. Tripled in caloric value and it’s at least seventeen grams of fat now. The bad kind of fat, too.

You sip your coffee.

You fidget for three minutes, non-stop, in order to burn some fat away. You suck in in in your skin, trying to forget.

After coffee, shower.

Here, you must be removing something.

Here, you scrub. With loofah. With pumice. With fingernails. You dig at your skin knowing flesh is like earth—you dig and dig and dig, yet the bottom seems unreachable.

You masturbate. This is not to turn you (reader) on. This is not to turn you (human) on. This is simply to dig more out. More numbers. More excess. You pull out your orgasm as though it is that magic trick with scarf up sleeve. You watch it drift down the drain.

Minus five pounds?

After shower, you dress. Here, all the hard work of removing and thinning is wasted. You climb more threads onto your skin than any mathematician could possibly count. You put on pants that suck it inin in. You button up shirt that hides it. You put on scarf that conceals it. You wear jacket that zips all of it in.

You leave. Hunt the earth as though none of these numbers count. You smile, engage in laughter knowing it is an exercise worthy of at least ten calories depending upon the length.

The memories keep coming. Each time, you excuse yourself to the washroom to purge. Force finger down throat to puke up your adolescence and your twenties and those few ones in your early thirties. You keep all that bile in toilet, taunting its smell with your resilient inhales.

Breathing in and in and in.

Because it can be difficult to flush away what once was and may still be.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, gender, great weather for media, meant to wake up feeling, memory, queer, queer body

Onward: Nebraska to Art Farm Writing residency!

With large blue backpack packed, I head to Nebraska for two week long writing residency.

When I first decided to be a writer (does one actually decide this?), I never thought I’d be awarded with the biggest gift a writer could get (besides a large box of black-ink extra fine pilot pens!):  TIME. Time to write. Uninterrupted time. An expanse of land to wander, to work, to gather, to meditate.

I began applying to residencies a few years ago. I didn’t know much about how; I just tried to follow the guidelines, submit my poems and hope for the best. It’s definitely a challenge for me to explain what I write or even how I write.

I found myself dressing in the rejection letters, replacing shirts and jeans with printed out form letters, kindly saying thank you, but no.

But a few months ago, I got my first yes. I immediately sent a message to my friend/accountability partner/mentor to tell him of this news. He was excited and also cautious. He wanted me to make sure this was what I wanted and how I wanted it to be. He told me to sit on it and give it a day or two before answering.

I walked around. I imagined myself writing in a state I’ve never been before. I imagined working on a farm, doing various forms of construction/carpentry/gardening/upkeep. I imagined sitting in front of my computer (INTERNET OFF!) and just writing. Working on poems and neglected prose.

Then, a little over twenty-four hours later, I made my decision.

YES. Of course! This has been my dream. And such validation as a writer to be granted this. YES. YES. YES!

So, here I go. Off to the 37th state admitted into this country in 1867. A state known for its tornadoes and thunderstorms. Major producer of beef and corn and writers!

My goal is to……well, write. But also to meditate on life and this existence and this privilege to go to a place specifically for writers and artists.

My goal is to poem and to sentence and to edit and hike and create and share and nourish and soak in this beautiful new (to me) land.

Thank you, Art Farm, for this amazing opportunity.

And writers, artists, creators of various sorts, you can do this too!

Do your research and find out residencies that are a good fit for you. Make goals. Search out deadlines. Find some land to spread your art on!

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Art Farm, artist residency, meant to wake up feeling, writing, writing life, writing residency

cutting.

No one taught you how to cut your hair but on the seventeenth year of your lunglife, you grabbed rusty scissors from all those times your mother cut open packages of meat and cut away your knots. Your length. the girl from you.

You heard a scream and wondered if your follicles could feel. You stopped, briefly and listened to where the howls were coming from.

Scissors? Your fingers?

Your mother, just on the other side of the door, which had opened without your knowing.

Your mother, with frosted tips because that is what mothers did back then. They highlighted parts of their hair to make up for the parts of themselves they couldn’t.

Your mother, who grabbed scissors and gasped at the river of curls colliding on the floor of your bedroom, messy from an episode of rage several hours earlier.

Your mother, who bled out words of anger, spoke, “Why do you make yourself so ugly?”

You look in the mirror and then at her. To mirror, then her. See the genes of her genes in your face. Shared ears of protrusion. Shared spots on face called freckles. Shared mental illness.

You do not pause, before jumping into the pool of hair below you. You try out your swimming postures as you butterfly and breaststroke into the waves of girl against wood. You flap and spread your skinny arms, coating yourself in tangle.

And then.

And then.

You drown. Forgetting your inability to swim.

Your mother? She is too caught up in the state of your scalp to save you from the flood of your suffocation.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, depression, gender, genderqueer, hair cut, meant to wake up feeling, mother daughter, poem, swimming

a door, opening

Dear Pen Pal,

They are just shapes. Squares. Angles. Equations. Ninety degrees. Trees turned inside out and shorn of hairy leaves. Decades of breathing taught me they were doors.  

[ dôr ]  :  A sign of entering. A revelation of more. Barrier of protection.

One lover told me I was like one of those metal doors at banks with thousands of coded locks attached. Said I was unapproachable, impossible to open and enter.

This is a lie, pen pal.   I am the one who has called myself this.

Doors can be painted in bright hues, some have awnings above them. Some have stained glass slits of sunshine’d colors coming through.

Doors can be heavy. Some can be see-through screens with aeration.

Doors can be purchased from hardware stores; doors can be made from found wood from backyards or the bush.

All of this is a metaphor for you.

Humans can be doors that upon twisting that knob of language, adventure and magic is born.

Humans are like doors in that they are tall & safe & protective & calm & still.

It was just after 7pm (or so) and a door walked through a door wearing a cap and suspenders and a room that had no meaning suddenly grew grass, acres of hyacinths and wildflowers of impossible colors.

This door was you.

We are surrounded by doors, which are doors. We are surrounded by doors, which are humans. Those who remind us to walk through, to get out, to wander. To explore.

How lucky. How beautiful. That I have fallen in love with the most booming of doors to ever welcome me through.

 

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", doors, love, meant to wake up feeling, pen pal, pen pal love, poem

an excerpt from my book “meant to wake up feeling”

Books are meant to be read! So, read this short excerpt from my book, “meant to wake up feeling“ and then, buy the book to read the rest!       (feel free to leave a review!!!)

 

from “zoned body”:

 

those are not freckles

but dust

from convulsing stars

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", books about gender, gender, great weather for media, LGBTQ poet, meant to wake up feeling, NYC poet, poetry book, queer body, queer poet

how to be a rebel

Scuff knees with the scent of tongue drapery and teeth ovation

Bury a bellow in the third mountain you climb and remove two twigs, a rock and the tip of your finger for emphasis

Place first name on griddle and burn the sounds away. You are now ________.

Pierce your wrists to one another as a statement of all the times you forgot to arrest yourself for _______ and definitely ________. Call your body a prison and your sentence:  life without parol.

Fondle a sentence in a book you’ve never heard of & then misquote it, knowing you are intentionally William S. Burroughs’ing it into a new configuration

Remain because all those others told you not to with their laws and restrictions, bans on marriage and placards and rallies against your body

Remain because of that time J. B. threw a three-piece dissected bee at you in seventh grade because you were inadequate and unformed

Remain because your body can be reintroduced to itself…..just watch

Hi

Hi

Don’t I know you from—-

No

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, meant to wake up feeling, poetry, poetry as rebellion, rebellion

a moment on your mouth.

I was asked to write about the state of your mouth.

(and by asked, I mean, compelled )

I was asked compelled to write about the state of your mouth and the adjectives that arrive are: earth-bound, orchestral, hungry, polite, southern, like a pastry.

I was compelled to write about the state of your mouth as though it is a kingdom. A nation of skin and exhales. A confederation of spit and jaws.

I was compelled to write about the state of your mouth as though it contained rivers, bicoastal oceans, twelve reservoirs and a creek to wade in.

Your mouth is a compilation of love letters.

Your mouth is a completed volume of encyclopedias, the kind delivered to one’s door and full of illuminating photographs and unchartered territories.

Your mouth is an unlocked secret.

Your mouth is a mailbox, delivering care packages full of rice crispy treats and home-baked cookies and licorice and books and black ink pens and decoder rings.

I was compelled.

I was enthralled.

I was deliberate.

When I signed up (without end date) to study the correspondence, the choreography of the movement of you.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Brrooklyn poet, love, meant to wake up feeling, mouth, pen pal, poetry

WORKSHOP ALERT: Hey, all you WORD SLINGERS, let’s talk about writing!!!

Poetry Teachers NYC is excited to host another great workshop. This time, it doesn’t matter where you live. You don’t even need to get dressed!! Just sign up and sign on and join us.

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY: 12- 1:30pm 

SIGN UP NOW: https://www.poetryteachersnyc.com/product/lets-talk-form-w-dan-dissinger-aimee-herman-megan-dibello/

This two day online workshop (1.5hrs each day), will explore the language, style, and forms of our poems. Student will be encouraged to share their work and provide feedback to other participants. This class encourages Poets of all levels, because even though we all mature differently as Poets, with a supportive community of writers, we tend to grow more confidently. Not only will we write and workshop our poems, but we will also be looking at texts from, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen” and Dodie Bellamy’s TV Sutras, amongst others. This class will challenge you to maneuver, speak your words, pose questions about what succeeds, and what may need more bones.

Be ready to not only sharpen and/reawaken your creative selves, but to become part of a growing community of supportive artists.

We look forward to meeting you!

Notes:

1. We will email everyone the link to the class the day of, so be sure to check your email. If you have any questions please email us: info@poetryteachersnyc.com

2. Make sure your computer has a had a recent Flash update

3. Make sure your computer has a camera and audio for the class

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", online writing workshop, Poetry Teachers NYC, PTNYC, writing, writing workshop