NIGHT IN THE NAKED CITY 6: Celebrating New York Poets @ Cornelia Street Cafe / 29 Cornelia St/ NYC 6pm-8pm $10 (which includes a drink)
I’m looking forward to reading a new poem and performing a new song about that time I met Lou Reed (what a dream) and he fondled my thumb. What a great line-up of poets: Eric Alter, Jane LeCroy, Steve Dalachinsky, Thomas Fucaloro, Obsidian, Puma Perl, George Wallace and Matthew Hupert (host, curator, and poet extraordinaire)
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I’ve been thinking a lot about Richard [Brautigan] and the slur of my body. And letters to what I’ve lost or look to find. And music. Always…..music.
Come celebrate poetry and performance with me on Tuesday, January 19th at: Risk of Discovery Reading Series
located @ Astoria Coffee
30-04 30th St Astoria, Queens
This FREE poetry open mic and show led by Micah Zevin @ Astoria Coffee opens its caffeinated doors at 7:30 for a 30 minute workshop. Participants will be given creative prompts to stimulate the writer’s poetic noodle.
Following the workshop, any and all other poetic enthusiasts, singers, songwriters, rappers, acoustic guitar players and slam poets can signup for the 15 slot open mic!
Each person will have 5 minutes to read one of their brand new workshop creations or another piece they have ready.
I’m excited to be featured alongside Gabriel Don and Craig Kite
This week, two brand NEW performances, which I’ve been working hard on!
Rimes of The Ancient Mariner presents:
“The Losers Club” Project
Cornelia Street Café – 29 Cornelia Street, NYC
Wednesday January 6, 2016 @ 6:00pm SHARP!
$9.00 Admission includes one free drink.
Also featuring: Ron Kolm, Joel Gold, Moira Smith, and many other great performers!
January 7th, 2016:
BIG WORDS!!! Reading Series
@ 61 Local (61 Bergen St, Brooklyn)
6-8pm
The night’s theme: Commuting
FREE EVENT !!!! (though we need to keep these venues alive, so purchase their delicious food and beverages!)
dear patti,
I fell in love with you when I read your words about Robert [Mapplethorpe] and I grew jealous of your photo shoots and memories. And then I read your poems. And listened to the moan of your voice, rocking out into microphones. When I moved back to New York, I searched for you. Knew that we’d collide, but wondered when. Then, one Thursday or Tuesday, you read from a book at St Marks bookshop and I went there with some poet friends. Patti, I thought this would be our moment of meeting. This would be the time our eyes would meet and you’d notice the poet in me and the rebel and even the sad and you’d grab me. Patti, you’d grab me with your skinny arms and bring me into your chest. You’d kiss me. Not like first-base-French-style, but just like from one poet to another. And you’d rub your years into my skin and we’d run away together. Patti…..this did not happen. Because when my friends and I got to the bookshop, we could barely fit in. The place was Times Square crowded. I nudged myself behind some bookshelves and for an hour, I listened to you read, with the view of just your nose, between the stacks of books. Just your nose, Patti.
Tonight, I get to celebrate you without you (because you are in France or the Netherlands or somewhere too far to make it here.) But just know that because of your magic, many poets and writers will gather to read you. And sing you.
Where? you (may) ask.
Cornelia Street Cafe at 29 Cornelia Street in the West Village/ NYC
And what time? you (may) wonder.
6pm. And though it’s $8 to enter, that does include a drink.
So, who’s reading my words? you (may) inquire.
Madeline Artenberg, Meagan Brothers, Megan DiBello, Daniel Dissinger, Gordon Gilbert, Aimee Herman, Selina Josephs, Gabriel Levicky, Lulu Lolo, Jess Martinez & Zita Zenda
Great Weather for Media presents the first of its NYC book launch events for its brand spanking new anthology located at Parkside Lounge located at 317 E. Houston St. NYC 7-9 pm (21+)
I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand is a fearless, dynamic collection of contemporary poetry and short fiction by established and emerging writers from across the United States and beyond. The anthology also includes an interview with John Sinclair – the legendary jazz/blues poet, former manager of the MC5, radio host, and activist.
Tonight’s line-up will feature Eric Alter, Tessa Lou Fix, Maria Gregorio, Aimee Herman, Joseph A.W. Quintela, Joe Roarty, John W. Snyder, and Luke Wiget
Hosted by the incredible David Lawton
Some palms are like walls. Too spackled and hidden to read. But when she let me grab her left and right and sit it in mine, I could have read for hours. She held novels within each crease. I traced each finger as though I had never seen one before; hers could have lead me to believe in anything.
She told me mine were artist hands. You’ve crossed borders on your knuckles, haven’t you? she said. I called her fingers pianos. I forgot to ask if she played any instruments. Maybe because I already know.
Around us, poetry. Occasionally, we would stop to listen. But I would not let go of her hand. I could not call her beautiful because that word describes days or meals. It is used everyday on too many things. She is more like a mountain. Difficult. High. A rubble of lives. Impossible to leave behind.
I pressed my fingers into her back. Rubbed at her energy. Yellow. Dim. Glow-in-the-dark.
I asked her to hold her gaze into my left eye for two minutes. I needed time to untwist the tether of her mind. 52 seconds, I taste salt. One minute 7 seconds, she drips fourteen yesterdays. One minute seventeen seconds, I see why she flinched when I touched her chest. One minute thirty one seconds and I feel what she feels. One minute forty nine seconds and I see green and owls and can taste the elephant in her.
Two minutes and I ask her what that led her to see or feel.
She smiles and I want to be homeless. She smiles and I want to be homeless so that I can beg her for the shelter that lives inside her smile.
I can’t…I can’t speak, she said.
Her face is contagious. I tell her to pause.
A poet walks on stage and she tells me that he is her friend. We watch and my knee touches hers and her shoulder leans against my forearm and all this touching should never have to end. Should never have to be named.
After our palms become instruments to honor the poems left on stage, she turns to me. I let her move my hair, which is far longer than hers but more masculine.
She whispers: Cement. I felt and saw cement.
I laugh because this is what I do. I touch people. I heal. I read. But I’ve never heard this before. I want her to clarify, but I also just want to leave that word alone.
It is getting noisier, but our pitch remains the same. We are now reading each other’s lips. Hers are small and she bites down on the bottom as though she is reeling it in like something she has just caught. Her teeth are crooked and charming. I whisper into her left ear a paragraph from Fear and Loathing. I ask her what she has memorized. When she leans in and presses her breath up against my hair and neck, she softly slurs: my name.
When midnight arrives, the chairs are put away and the lights tell us it is time to go home. I ask her to drink tequila with me because earlier she called this the liquid that causes her self to be left behind. We walk across the street and drink it on ice with sour mix. We both leave our straws behind as I hand her my passport and go page by page, reading out each stamp. She listens, creating poems in her head that I’m sure will be read on tomorrow’s stage. I want to kiss her but I am indelicate with my mouth and instead I press my chest to hers and we embrace. Tomorrow, her palms will be hungover and I will wonder about the three identities I located inside her. I will try to place the name of the forest her smell reminds me of while finding the remains of her salt still swimming in my skin.
Tonight, I am pleased to peel open this book of poetics, prose and photographic language and celebrate The Body Electric anthology at one of my favorite NYC bookshops: Bluestockings.
Join some of the contributors, Salita Bryant, Ryan Austin, Scott Bentley, Craig Scott and I as we read from this wonderful new anthology.
Bluestockings Bookstore is located at 172 Allen St.
The reading begins at 7pm and there will be a special discount code given for those to purchase books online.
Aimee Herman 