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/
You fill your bag with clementines, chocolate and an empty bag for the shells you hope to catch. You sit beside a writer who unravels her days as though they are novels. You scrub out all the wax unintentionally collected in both ears so as not to miss a word. You hit traffic lights and listen to the sound of impatient cars outside each window. When you travel down the alphabet of street names, you finally reach ocean.
In New York, it is so easy to see bricks and concrete and potholes and urine stains but a handful of miles away, there is blue and there is salt water and there are sea gulls and there is a boardwalk.
You digest the ocean. Man jogs by, moaning and gasping as he passes by. You giggle because you don’t run, so the only time you make those sounds are during sex. A spandex’d man on his bike stops to remind you how Coney Island used to look. The dilapidated wood used to be sturdy and handsome. Storms have rummaged Coney Island’s insides and outsides. You can feel the sadness of his reminisce.
You get high. Walk over to the sand and sit beside the shells and crushed crab bodies. You share chocolate and stories. You ignore pangs of anger that you do not come here more often. You are here now. You are here now.
At some point, you eat a corn dog and french fries. You ignore the thick whispers of winter edging its voice onto your earlobe. You still have some time and the air is warm enough to remain outside.
Until the sun goes down.
As the hours drip past, you head back toward parked cars and sleeping rollercoasters. You thank Coney Island for still being alive after all these years. For always remaining open, even when closed.
WARNING: This post may cause abdominal pain. And it may increase digestion. And those who read this may develop bed sores on their bed side. Side effects may also include: increase of oxygen to most parts of the brain, teeth whitening, freckle recognition, harmonized memories and unambiguous thoughts.
****** ****** ****** *****
Resting against my face is not a smile. I used to take pills to push one into my skin like the imprint a foot makes in the sand. But there were all those side-effects and suddenly a smile just wasn’t worth all the small print tumbling me into nightmares, dry mouth, loss of sexual appetite and on and on.
I walk on Utica Avenue in Brooklyn from home to subway and three different humans (all male-bodied) stop me and say, “Smile!” as though I had forgotten how.
On the train, I study the commuters who travel like I do and try to decipher the language of their faces. I realize that my lips are turned downward. I lift one side, not quite into a smile but less than a frown. Then, I stop myself. Who am I manipulating my lips for?
I enter a room and collect a bouquet of “How are you’s”. I answer wisely: “Well” or “Good, thank you.” But what I want to utter is: “Troubled, at times” or “Feeling stifled by language which I cannot connect to myself” or “Traumatized by my trip here” or “Okay, but I’d really like to be better.”
My father reads my blog. Tells me my posts have grown sad. I want to tell him that my words are all from the same seed. That the soil they live inside is sometimes colder and sometimes rotten and sometimes neglected but always feeling. I want to tell him that I am a writer and words cannot all be yellow with three dimensional, rotating suns singing in unison. Sometimes syllables shake and have to sit down.
I just don’t want to fake it anymore because in that fake there is tragedy. I want to frown in plain sight; how terrible it feels to be in hiding.
At night, our faces can rest. No one needs clarity when the lights are turned down and we travel into REM. We can wince and we can furrow and we can twist our flesh into sorrowful sighs. And how beautiful and how real all that is. To just rest in a face you really feel without having to make someone else more comfortable.
It’s okay……really…..please…..don’t smile…..just be.
During my long trek through undergrad, sitting in a range of undersized desks housed in campuses spanning from NJ to CT to NY to CO, I found myself in classes that stretched my mind in directions I never expected to go.
Two communities colleges, a college in Brooklyn and then a university in Boulder, Colorado. Years of searching through my mind to find myself. To remain sober. To challenge myself. To fall in love. To fall out of love. To lose my mind. To gain parts of it back. To disagree with professors. And then, to become one myself.
During one semester in Boulder, Colorado, I took a meditation class. I always wanted to be that person with a practice. One who could turn off life and the voices in my head in order to sit in stillness.
We began each class sitting in a large circle; there were many of us. The instructor, a strikingly beautiful older woman with long brushstrokes of grey hair, would guide us into the meditation. There we sat, trusting the space and trusting each other. In silence. Recognizing the infiltration of thoughts and allowing them to flutter past like buzzing butterflies.
I was the one wearing frizzy red hair, housing a gut of frustration, with my eyes open.
I meditated by watching.
I know. This is not the way it is done. But I have a difficult time with rules and being in groups and being still.
Watching humans being alive in this meditative state is so calming. I was envious of their lack of fidget. Each time I closed my eyes, a strobe light of trauma arrived in my mind. My panic would force my eyes open, as I realized that everyone else was far better at keeping to the rules.
I grew enamored by the array of skin, folding of limbs, welcomed palms resting on knees. I watched the sun pour in from the window and highlight the dust particles floating around us like auras of spiritual awakenings.
The teacher asked us to keep a meditation journal. We were expected to meditate outside of class and write about the experience.
What came up? What were some challenges? Any moments of enlightenment?
I remember a particular journal entry of mine. It was during a time when I felt very displaced from my body.
After handing my paper in, my teacher took me aside after class and asked me if I was okay.
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to fondle her hair with my eyes.
“I was taken aback by what you wrote. You seem so young to have had a hysterectomy.”
I didn’t know what to say. I quickly traveled in my mind to remember what I had written to make her think I had had this procedure.
“I….I didn’t,” I said to her. “What made you think I had?”
“The way you wrote about your body. The pain. The [gutting].”
Now, I realize why I feel so much more comfortable writing over speaking. When I write, what I want to say is far more direct and articulated than when I just talk it out.
At that time, I didn’t spend much time thinking about hysterectomies. Now, many years later, I’ve begun researching them, realizing a desire and need to actually get one. It’s far more complicated than this white box, which welcomes my text. It’s about gender. It’s about that displacement. It’s about pain.
But this is not about that.
This is about ways to be still. Maybe meditation is not quite for me. Yoga does it sometimes. Though there is movement, there is silence and stillness within each pose. There is recognition of life and strength with each stretch.
Biking does it too.
And writing, of course.
Often, it is just about reminding myself that I can be. Still.
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!
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
It is pronounced: map. One syllable with proper push of “pppp” at the end.
Or atlas, if you’re lucky to have a gathering of many.
They can be found in glove compartments in automobiles and in backpacks, folded neatly like an intricate fan of coordinates.
Lately, it can also be found with a mouthpiece, titled GPS. A rotation of satellites orbiting in the sky– when positioned correctly– can let you know whether you need to make a left or right or….
RECALCULATING….
On a road trip many years ago, in a subaru hatchback with enough room in the back for a foam mattress, there was no voice letting us know how to get to where we needed to go. We dug out a rand mcnally and leafed through pages that could have been called art. When we got lost, we stopped somewhere and asked for directions. Conversed with locals and breathed in the air of new (to us) land.
Then, we weren’t reliant on fancy phones guiding our every move.
Then, there was no contraption plugged into car to dictate our route.
Then, adventures felt more FREE form.
We have forgotten how to get lost. We dig out our lovers from left or right pocket, swipe in several directions to get us where we need to go.
We don’t wander as much.
Some don’t wander at all.
I am detached from a GPS. I carry around tiny pieces of paper with tiny shards of ink curled in, with my directions, that I carefully looked up. But if I get lost, I ask those around me who are attached. Or…I allow myself to wander until I really need to be where I need to be.
You are ****here******.
But maybe you can get there a little slower. Leave earlier next time and give yourself extra room for wandering. Slice in a little escapade into your day.
You may be surprised by your ability to go a few more minutes, even hours without the help of your palm pilot.
Inside this body, I have two. No, three. I’m still counting.
Inside this body, I have alphabetized two hundred and fourteen (plus or minus) bodies, birthed out of books out of words multiplying into more words, crafting enough bones to hold me up for days at a time.
Inside this body, I speech about pronouns and water. I remove every vein from beneath skin to sew into a tightrope for others to reach me.
Inside this body, splinters from the trees I’ve made love to. I’ve got shagbark and shellbark pulling at my shape with stretched branches.
Inside this body, a dialogue with freedom.
Inside this body, screams to wake the dead.
Inside this body, several long stories and a personal essay with fifteen pages of footnotes.
Inside this body, a love triangle featuring poetry, prose and musical notes.
Inside this body, an understanding of light fixtures and renewal.
Inside this body, a literal interpretation of every crack I’ve jumped over or squashed. Here, is where I focus my map. The map of behind me and what is yet to be trekked.
You forget the lyrics to “The Alphabet Song”. You know it starts with “A”, but where it continues, you just can’t recall. You dip your fingers in grease left in a pan from last night’s supper in order to count the rings of your identity. You keep hearing the voice of your childhood haunt your brainstem, so you press music into your speakers and call it Miles Davis. You are live at Cafe Bohemia with blackbirds and piano as you unravel the poetics clung beneath your skin like thought clots.
Experiment #71: When it rains, you might notice a collage of confetti’d water altering your view. Walk toward your nearest window. Preferably the one beneath the hardest-working cloud. Stitch your eyes into one of the drops collecting your attention. What colors do you see? Green. Faded red. How cold is the window and how does your body react when you touch it?
Remember that time you cried so hard that one of your lungs pushed its way up to beneath your rib cage and your chest grew taller? And your breaths felt as though they were imprisoned or housed inside a barred fist. It was springtime. Remember? And everyone around you was dry. It’s like your body had become this cloud of salt raining over your limbs.
Beneath the curtains of your body is every weather pattern that ever existed and a hybrid of several that we aren’t used to seeing together. Open that window. I know it’s cold; yes, it is wet too. But just slide it up and scream out your weather pattern. Scream out your temperature. Your precipitation. Allow the air to breathe you in.
Aimee Herman 
