Aimee Herman's Blog, page 4

Emotive Fruition!

Emotive Fruition is an inventive merge of poets and actors celebrating spoken word. I am excited to have a poem, “hide-n-seek” featured in the upcoming show celebrating loooooooooove poems.

LET LIGHTNING SET US ON FIRE is a live performance of poetry written by some of New York’s hottest poets and performed on stage by a cast of film and stage actors. This Valentine’s Day, snuggle up with some fiery poems about modern love that will surely get your heart going.

WHEN/WHERE? February 3rd / Caveat Bar / 21 A Clinton Street / New York, NY 10002

Doors 6:30 PM, show 7:00 PM.

Tickets $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

21+

This event is mixed seated and standing room. Seats are first-come, first-served.

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE!!

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Poems written by Michelle Bermudez, Michael Broder, Elizabeth Burk, Susana H. Case, Janel Cloyd, LeConte Dill, Jared Harel, Aimee Herman, Emily Hockaday, Quincy Scott Jones, Dara Kalima, Arden Levine, Anna Limontas-Salisbury, Chrissy Malvasi, Cynthia Manick, Caitlin Grace McDonnell, Jason Schneiderman, Lynn Schmeidler, Jackie Sherbow, Kathleen Williamson

Directed by Thomas Dooley

Name Calling

I am trying to articulate and wrap my understanding around the words I want to ask others not to use on me. What if we could carry a tiny index card in our pockets and on this card were the words that make us feel invisible, incorrectly seen, or just simply cause us to cringe. And by just carrying these words in our pocket, that ink becomes so powerful that it creates a…force field…an electromagnetic barrier making it impossible for these words to be spoken in our presence.

What words would be written on your card?

I thought about this yesterday while traveling home from a friend’s memorial. I was on the C local train, without a book to read and only my tiny notebook to keep me occupied. I began a list:

List of Words I Hate Being Called

miss, ma’am, girl, cute*, woman, lady, wife,

And then I stopped because one of those words was used towards me three times earlier in the day. As a writer, I know that I can have all the control over the words I want to use. I decide what I want to write and how I want to write it. Of course, I may use a thesaurus (or the computer) to help fill in when I want a different word.

Walking around, I have no control over how people see me or use their words toward me. This is a strange juxtaposition because it can startle and create an invisible seizure in my body because how I see myself is so often not how others see me.

Recently, I paid a professional to chop off all my hair (or much of, at least). I thought this removal might help balance my reflection. I thought this removal might help me feel like how I felt.

Spoiler alert: it did and it did not.

I have learned many things about myself over the years such as: I really am lactose intolerant no matter how much I try to ignore this; I continue to feel the need to challenge authority figures; I much prefer to be by myself; I can live without alcohol though not marijuana; sometimes I enjoy wearing women’s underwear; and no matter how far I try to run away from myself, the turmoil and fragmentation of myself lives within. Therefore, haircut or wardrobe is just a minuscule portion of who and how I am and feel.

I do not want to police others about vocabulary. Well, actually, sometimes I do. But most times I just want to be off-duty from all of that. I want to be seen, but it’s impossible for others to see me how I desperately want to be seen unless I say something.

I really, really, really, really, really (you get it?) do not want to be called cute. I am forty. I am jagged and messy and queer and wild and that is just not an adjective that settles well beside the wax in my eardrum. This word makes me feel like I am being mispronoun’d.

So, here is a replacement: bold. Or how about: like a savage poppy growing in a field of dandelions. Or even: You look like YOU.

I am quite sure I have used words toward others that weren’t quite right. Adjectives and nouns and other parts of speech that were severely incorrect. And for that, I am sorry because I know what it feels like to be mispronounced and I never want to do that to another.

I am still adding to my list. It is one of those lists that is forever to be continued….

And I am working on a different list. A list of what I would like to be called. How I want to be seen. Because I am still figuring this out after decades of not even considering it.

Looking Back on Writing

Thank you to Raluca Albu for prompting me to write and to BOMB for publishing the following piece:

To me, writing is always like walking up a flight of stairs with giant gaps in between. I lose my breath, my limbs start to shake, I worry I am going to fall and awaken in a chalk outline of my mistakes.

For full article and many other wonderful writers’ responses including Lidia Yuknavitch go to: BOMB

https://bombmagazine.org/articles/looking-back-the-past-decade-in-literature/

Dear 2019 and the years before that,

I learned that the color of a bruise is synonymous to the sky right before a storm. And just like the sky, the body can thunder and lightening itself until it is unrecognizable.

There are billions less birds flying above us. Instead of the flapping of wings, we hear clouds tangle and cough like flu victims. I walked around the Metropolitan Museum of Art and lost count of the humans wearing face masks. I held my breath for as long as I could. What are we really breathing in?

Blame it on the squall.

I learned that articulating the correct pronoun can save a life.

Sometimes the most difficult decision one can make in a day is to turn off their Internet.

Sometimes the second most difficult decision one can make in a day is to exist for twenty-four hours and post zero photographs of what you ate.

Learned how to embroider; learned how to walk outside; learned I can stay inside; learned how to say no; learned how to leave without causing a scene; learned how to sit still (even if just for five minutes); learned how to approach my body (carefully, as though we are meeting each other for the first time);

I still have no idea who I am.

On January 1st, I will not eat differently.

On January 1st, I will not join a gym.

On January 1st, my scars will not erase themselves away.

On January 1st, I will have still done that.

Haruki Murakami wrote, “Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.”

I learned that I don’t have to forget all of this, but I don’t have to carry it every day. I can live amidst war, even when it is inside me. I can search for peace amidst the screams and slashings.

Sometimes, just saying hello to a stranger can save a life or at least remind each other that we are visible even when we are not trying to be.

Some words, questions and (hopefully a bit of) hope

Thank you to Denise-Marie McIntosh from Fairy Tale Access at Nashua, New Hampshire Public Access for asking such thoughtful questions and for giving me space to speak about my novel, “Everything Grows”.

 

The inside of my body is like a buffet/ but all the containers are empty

Dear Rebel,

I write to you because when we speak, all my words come out in the exact shape as it lives inside me. Everywhere else, my letters bulge and bend inaccurately. My teeth slur. My knees shiver so loudly that nothing else can be heard.

Have you ever been pronounced correctly? What does that feel like. I hosted a party inside my body the other night. No one came; no one else was invited. There were snacks but nothing was touched. Actually, handfuls were taken, but then everything just turned to dust.

My body is a dust storm of uncertainty.

When I was a child, my favorite food was: buffet. All-you-can-eat with more choices than I could ever need. I didn’t have to choose just one option. I’ve never just been one option. I could sample the flavors I was unfamiliar with, maybe even declare something new as my favorite.

Couldn’t bodies, can’t gender, can’t identities be like buffets? An all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of choices and possibilities? I may be in the mood for mac and cheese today, but tomorrow, I may desire beef stew or vegetable lo mein.

Do all these choices have to define me? How are my choices, how is my appearance defining me?

Dear Rebel, my hair has nothing to do with my gender identity. It is long now, gets caught in zippers and, at night, it tries to strangle me. What if I am just this mix-and-match unmatched being?

What if my only declaration is: I have nothing to declare.

I am trying to empty all this out. All of this. All of me. Rinse and repeat.

The inside of my body is like a buffet. But all the containers are empty. And I am searching for what I want to eat now.

Sister Outsider

Somewhere in the crevices of your blood hides/another fist another/cornea another/encyclopedia of exit signs/neon guiding you out/I learned how to speak from you/I am learning how to breathe out of/ away from silence

 

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Inspired by Audre Lorde’s “Sister Outsider”

Exile and Pride

I build a step ladder with all of my bones/pulled out as though slow cooked inside me/this is the only way to get home

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Inspired by Eli Clare’s “Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation”

Shock Treatment

there/there/there/clinging to tongue/tongue/tongue/a howl so big/big/big/it causes traffic accidents/wind storms/hurricane-wrapped-tornado/an allergic reaction/ a summons/ right right/there/ pull it out/ all the answers can be found in the length of a scream

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Inspired by “Shock Treatment” by Karen Finley

The Testosterone Files

If you hunt inside a body/ rummaging past the inflamed mosquito bites/ misspelled doctor’s notes/ collection of scabs and lists of words to look up/ you will find a peep hole toward a reflection/ of a part of you never reached/ sometimes books save lives/ this book/ saved mine

 

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Inspired by Max Wolf Valerio’s “The Testosterone Files”