a poem for you!

If you haven’t been receiving Keep Writing, here is the entire exquisite corpse style poem created through postcards and the mail, with a title I provided, 3-10 lines each from Brian Mattarochia, Anis Mojgani and Jenn Marie Nunes, with linking lines provided by subscribers. Each of these writers sent me lines in their handwriting, which I made into a printing plate and letterpress printed. It was started in September with the third installment sent in May. Across those months, I decided to move, changed my address and, like all of you, was ordered to stay home for the health and safety of others. So this surrealist party game has become an adventure.

WE CREATE NOTHING ALONE

I took your picture

with me in my pocket

when i went to the underworld

when I wandered into the woods

in my dreams

and never came back

never emerged from the other side

never came back

never came back out

there was a tiny perfect spider consuming me

and it was you.

You and the rest of your siblings

were gathering somewhere

and I was walking with the tiniest of blueberries

the sun overhead bright as a new tooth

I was missing something in me

not sure if it was what was always had once been in the hole

or if it was now the hole itself

but there was a song

and it was using my body to make itself move to make itself loud

and that which was tiny

was now immense

exhibit A

the system cracking out its

own ribs or

a cat flat on the tarmac

an eruption of flies

and when you name me

the small skin of which

contained me

lets you in.

I’m not going to lie—typing this out is the first time I’ve read it all together, and I am crying. Thank you all for participating. Always for being a part of things.

PS Anis and Jenn both have books of poetry that I can’t recommend enough.

ask a kid

In October, I travelled to the west coast to visit friends. This was way before I decided I would move there. Anyway, it had been awhile and it was good to see so many friends among so many tall trees.

As we are getting older, more of my friends have kids. And more of their kids are no longer babies. I know Pat and Grace from the Bay Area. We met before Aggie was born. I was glad for a few days at their new place in Tacoma with Aggie and Harry, even getting to experience Trunk or Treating with them, showing up in my cameo roll as the weird Aunt at the event at Harry’s school.

At Oly Zine Fest, artnoose told me about her 7 year old. and our host, Kelsey, talked about her kid who is grown now.

As my trip was cut short for work, I chose an old friend in Portland over new letterpress friends (I’ll be back!) because his kid is now 8 and I had not yet met him.

Arlo was 7 3/4 when we met and within an hour we talked about crystals, rocks and what we carry in our pockets. We went to OMSI and he showed me the fish and the lizards too.

I realized that aside from teaching, I don’t spend much time talking with kids. I’ve never wanted kids and though I like teaching, I wasn’t sure I was any good at talking with them. Then what I realized is that you just have to listen. It’s a lot. Kids say a million things in a minute, making connections I can’t keep up with. That’s what’s fun.

I know I have a lot of friends who don’t like kids and I get it. Groups of kids are hard for some people but groups of adults can be hard too. Kids have a range of personalities and I realized that the quiet, focused ones are easy to talk to, well , as easy as anyone else. So I wanted to make a postcard for the kids.

I called Arlo’s dad, Adam, for advice about wording the question I wanted to ask. He checked with Arlo, who said it was a good question. And then Arlo made his own Keep Writing to ask me a question. He mimicked my form, telling a story and then asking a question about the story. It is my favorite fan mail yet.

Adam and Arlo keep chameleons at their place in Portland. If you want to hear about it, you can check out the Chameleon Breeder’s podcast where they talk about kids taking care of chameleons.

from Arlo’s Keep Writing to me

sleeping troubles

When I was 17 or 18 I had penpals I met through zines. I wrote to people who puts ads in zines, to people who created zines. I am not sure how I met Molly Kalkstein but I have a spring themed mixtape from her from the mid 90’s. I loved her zines, her aesthetic but also the careful observant voice.

We’ve only met twice—once for a few hours when she was an undergrad at Swarthmore. And then about 12 years ago I biked from Burlington to Montreal to stay with her. I got very sick on the way and she was kind. I felt ok by the time I left but I was not a great houseguest, tired and dizzy the first few days. Still, she made us delicious food, took me on a bike adventure, and brought me to a handmade paper mill. I remember she had turned her entry way into a camera obscura. When I got home, two weeks later, still sick and now also suddenly dumped, she sent me a small book made with papers we had bought in Montreal. She suggested maybe we collaborate in someway, introspective women living in french cities.

Finally this spring it happened. I asked her if she wanted to design something for a postcard and she generously agreed. She offered a few Albrecht Durer drawings, I chose one and she wrote the question. It is a good one. I rarely have trouble sleeping ( I might be perpetually over-tired) .

And here it is, Keep Writing number 121, sent in May 2019. Printed in colors chosen to match the desert flower stamps I bought in honor of Molly’s current residence—Tucson, Arizona. Hopefully it isn’t our only collaboration.

your friends are here to help you through

Recently, a grieving friend offered this to another: the world is fucked. life sucks. your friends are here to help you through it.

Which seems pretty grim. Except at that moment, things probably felt pretty grim. In the middle of really tough times, remembering your friends are here, not to change the situation but to help you through it, that’s a powerful realization. And the only comfort that can be offered sometimes.

It’s been a rough year for a lot of people I know. The big changes of this fall—the all or nothing gestures seem borne out enormous loss. Yet, here we are.

Am I using this as an opportunity to write a thank you note to everyone who supported me in the past year. A little. But I want you to share in the appreciation of the people around us who won’t tell you that it isn’t terrible but also won’t leave your side.

This is Keep Writing number 125, sent late September 2019.

post script:

while searching my own name on the internet one night I found this audio recording of a letter to my friend walker. it is part of an audio zine I don’t remember. I don’t know how it ended up here, on youtube. I do remember all the events described, though I had forgotten who was in the house on the night I describe. I am surprised and yet not actually surprised but the similar language in this story and the postcard above, made 14 years apart. I am glad I mention people I still see frequently here. Anyway, here it is:

Taken from The Jammy Dodgers / Transmissions audiozine #2 Split CD CD, Album, Limited Edition, Audiozine Rock-It Records (2008)



shared type

I started as a letterpress printer in a basement shop full of type. I might’ve taken for granted the amount of type I had access to. I worked in other shops, was part of a collective with a beautiful type collection but rarely had any of my own. Most of what I print is a monthly postcard. It originated in type but now I mostly use polymet plates, a hardened, recyclable plastic. It isn’t ideal but it is cost-effective.

When Paper Machine was opening, a lot of people who thought letterpress printing had left the city came by to share stories of their dads and granddad’s print shops. Which is how the Gosserand Superior Printers wood type ended up here. Used for years in the production of posters for local jazz shows, this black owned printshop has been out of business for years, but their woodtype was donated to Paper Machine.

Monica Tyran is a New Orleans artist who write a grant to get the type cleaned and sorted so the modern day letterpress printers of the city could use it. And so we did! When I asked her to collaborate with me, we discussed a few ideas but this one was the obvious winner! We choose a few cuts from 3 different drawers. I inked them up in black and printed them on a little sign press here. I scanned the prints and sent them to Monica who designed the card pretty much as you see it. I ordered polymer plates and she came to the shop a few days before I left for summer vacation to see me print them on my windmill.

Mailed the 3rd week of August since the month before was a little late, from the last stop on my swimfest road trip, here is Keep Writing number 124, asking you to tell me about a collection you have.

BE HERE NOW with Caroline Paquita

For August's Keep Writing postcard, artist and illustrator Carline Paquita wants to ask you a few questions about how you use your cellphone.  Founder of Pegacorn Press, her feminist queer publications deal with the trends of society and forces opposing the expected flow.  She sent me the illustrations for this card and I designed it, including choosing to print a pink and purple split fountain on slick stardream paper, making for a glittery card that was tricky to print. 

Here are my answers to her questions about ways I limit screen time.

• My phone lives at my desk.  At night, and as much as I can during the day, including when I leave to teach a class.
• FB is for business only. I never installed the app, I removed messenger and my private profile is not public and I have no friends. I make batch posts once every 2 weeks for events for my business.
• IG is mostly business.   This is where I struggle.  I am starting to post and check only once a day because even with no personal profile and a limited number of people I follow I still mindlessly scroll sometimes.
• Timers for everything. This is a trick that works for me for staying focused when I do computer work but I have started doing it in the studio too. I set a 30 minute timer, stretch after every 30, and work on one project for those 30 minutes. Sometimes it is simple like "I will clean up my desk for the next 30 minutes."  Sometimes it is just a timer to not check my phone and work on whatever I am drawing for 3o minutes. Usually I leave myself 5 minutes every hour for email and IG but even that seems like too much. Sometimes I set a shorter timer if I need to finish up something. 
• Limited notifications & do not disturb . My screen only shows that I have a text and from who.
• My phone is a mini-computer. After numerous incidents and unrepairable devices, I have started treating my phone like the tiny computer it is. I do not carry it in my pocket. I have a phone that is slim and easy to hold (bigger ones are too easy to drop). I try not to walk and look at the screen ever.  I leave it inside or at home when I am with friends, unless I am riding home alone at night. 

I tried going back to a flip phone last summer. I originally had a version of the pink flip phone that Caroline mentions.  My died the day I moved to Oakland. I've been through a few phones since then. I tried going back to the flip phone, the one I had was so slow I stopped answering messages. And since I still used my phone for work, I had an internet only device. It was more time consuming than just having a reliable smartphone. 

That's where I am at. I am trying out this once-a-day IG check. I'll let you know how it goes. You can post IG from your computer with a few tricks, so maybe I'll try that. 

Im also working on driving less. My studio is over a bridge and a little far or me to bike every day but I know how much better I feel so I will try. I'm always making small changes to work towards a better healthier me. Slowly. Slowly. 

Want to get a card with a question for you an answer every month? Subscribe to the Keep Writing Project.

Want to see all the responses I receive to Caroline's questions? Check out this. 

How Will You Tell Your Story (an interview with Amy Berkowitz)

Amy Berkowitz graciously agreed to collaborate on a Keep Writing postcard. As a writer, and a clear and direct asker-of-questions, I thought she might bring something interesting and new to the series. Having asked illustrators, designers and letterpress printers to come up with something, I thought might be interesting to work with someone could frame a question better than I can.   

Amy is the author of Tender Points, the curator of Mondo Bummer, an organizer of Sick Fest and is working on a new manuscript about rape. She developed the idea for this month's postcard--a seder plate with room for the recipient to tell their story through food. She also agreed to answer a few questions.

• How would you introduce yourself? I'm a writer living in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco. A few years ago, I wrote a book of lyric nonfiction about chronic pain and sexual violence, and now I'm working on a novel about the ways we succeed and fail at supporting rape survivors. Sometimes people who ask me what I write about do not want to stick around and hear that answer! I described the novel to a guy at a wedding last year and he actually started retreating from me as I answered him, walking slowly, sideways back to the dance floor.

• I know a little about Mondo Bummer--can you explain it for the people? Mondo Bummer is something between a poetry press and a mail art project. I started it when I was in grad school at University of Michigan. I really disliked the program's closed-minded approach to poetry, and I felt isolated there. So I started a poetry press that published work I thought was important, even if my grad program might have thought otherwise. The first 44 Mondo Bummer books were 5 pages or fewer of corner-stapled letter-size paper, folded in an envelope. That's the joke, it's a bummer, the production values are shitty. Then I made some traditional attractive-looking chapbooks because I got bored with the shitty aesthetic. It's been a wild ride. I'm taking a break from Mondo Bummer to focus on other projects but it will always be part of my life. 

• Do you have a dedicated work space and if so what does it look like? Is it your ideal space or what would your ideal workspace look like? Like a cat, I gravitate towards sunny spaces and bring my laptop / projects there. My current workspace is in a room that doesn't get a lot of light, so I'm working on changing that. 

• What is your writing practice like? Do you stick to a rigid daily schedule or something more flexible? I don't have a strict writing schedule, but it's something I'm moving towards. It feels more helpful to have a regular writing practice for a novel versus something shorter / more fragmented. I try not to let myself feel guilty for not writing "enough." So much of the work of writing is thinking... talking... living. 

• Your book Tender Points is about trauma, sexual violence and illness.  I know you have toured and been invited to read from it around the country (and in Lithuania?!)--how do you prepare to discuss personal trauma over and over with strangers? I'm so excited to give a workshop at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius this summer! I need to check with them about logistics. I think the "over and over" is the key. The more I talk about this difficult-to-talk-about stuff, the more comfortable I feel with it, the more distance I gain from the immediacy of the material. I'm starting that process over with the new book; now it's my turn to deal with how painful it is to write about the ways we let each other down after rape, which is a whole other area of trauma. And finally I'll say that it feels better to talk about this stuff than NOT to talk about it. As painful as it is, I think it's good to start the conversation. 

• As a kid I read a lot, though thinking about it, I read the same books over and over. Now I listen to a lot of audiobooks--sometimes the same one over and over.  One year the only books I read was Tender Points and Dune. Do you have any recommendations for a lapsed reader like myself? Yes! Jenn Pelly's 33 1/3 book about The Raincoats' self-titled album (very inspiring look into an ardently feminist punk band that did things their own weird way, by consensus, with passion and sincerity). Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women (some of the most beautiful, funny, sad short stories I've read, in a very distinct conversational voice). Myriam Gurba's Mean (lively lyric memoir that does a beautiful job talking about rape and its aftermath, among other things). And Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (a gender-fluid romp through queer subcultures of the '90s, furnished with spot-on period details).

Amy Berkowitz developed the concept and wrote the text for Keep Writing number 106, in your mailbox now if you are a subscriber. (if you are missing out, subscribe here)   .  You can find links to some of her writing and more information about Tender Points at  amyberko.com.  

Keep Writing number 106 sent February 2018. words and concept by Amy Berkowitz. Plate illustration and design by Hope Amico/gutwrench press

Sharing a Meal With Folks (guest post by Tara Hill)

a note from Hope: Keep Writing number 105 was sent in January 2018 and asked you to recall a meal you enjoyed with others.  It was a collaboration between gutwrench press and Tara Hill, a UK artist who wrote this post sharing her story behind this idea. For the collaboration, Tara sent illustrations and a prompt and I designed and printed the final card. Tara lives in Nottingham, England but you don't have to go far to see examples of her illustrations--visit tfhtfh.tumblr.com for prints, posters and fabric designs and to buy prints of her work.

ps if you want to receive letterpress cards like this every month, sign up for the Keep Writing postcard project! 

now from Tara:

The reason I chose this subject came from a time when I was feeling depressed, powerless and like I’d really lost my moorings. I wanted to help myself but didn’t know how I could as it felt all encompassing. I didn’t feel equal to much of anything life was throwing at me and as much as I grasped, I couldn’t think of a neat ‘answer’ to it all - something that would solve all of my problems and would allow me to move on with my life. I wanted something big and dramatic that would sort everything out but a. I couldn’t work out what that was and b. I doubt I would have felt up to it if this magic solution had presented itself. I needed to do something, so decided to start small. I hadn’t been looking after myself. In my depressed state I didn’t value myself enough to care for myself and was preoccupied with feeling terrible. I was eating badly and mechanically. I had also been on some medication that had made me unable to eat properly and made me feel physically unwell and lose quite a bit of weight. I decided I needed to sort out my physical wellbeing before I would be able to start working on my mental wellbeing, so I started buying myself nice, fresh food and thinking about what my body needed to stay healthy. I looked through my recipe books and focussed on cooking nice, tasty food that I’d look forward to eating, that was healthy and would give me more energy to help me cope with an emotional state that was very draining. I cooked for my housemates and anyone who came round too. It felt nice to take the time to prepare food and then sit and share it with other people. It was social and it was uncomplicated. When I eat on my own I often eat too quickly and I often want to read something or watch something which means that I don’t notice what I’m eating. Eating with other people slowed me down and let me just enjoy the time at hand as well as being a great way to socialise and enjoy other people’s company.

To start with, it was a conscious survival technique, to help me to be able to cope with things I was struggling with emotionally. However, after a while it stopped being just a coping mechanism and became a really joyful and natural part of my life. It got me into a sort of habit of finding joy in all sorts of every day things, even just riding my bike to work along the canal and enjoying all of the sights, sounds and feelings along the way. I can’t say all my problems were solved as a result of eating better and eating with other people by any stretch but I feel in a much better position to deal with life than I was before. Feeding and nourishing myself helped me to value myself again and to slowly (slowly is important- this has been a long process and not a quick fix) find my moorings again. Eating and preparing food with others helps me get out of myself for a time, which is something that I have found invaluable for overcoming depression. It’s also enjoyable, enriching and helps me to feel connected to other people and the world, that can often feel alienating and scary.

I realise how lucky I am that I can afford nice food, have somewhere to cook it, friends to eat it with and the time to prepare it. I also enjoy cooking, which I know some people don’t. I want to stress that it’s more about taking the time out, paying attention to what’s happening in the moment.  I know it’s difficult to do this but even a small thing in a day can be good.  It doesn’t have to be some huge, expensive banquet that takes hours to prepare and makes you feel more stressed. Having a tea break and offering to make someone else a cup and then sitting down to drink it together can be enough. In the morning, if I’m on my own I like to feed the cats at the same time as I eat my breakfast. Then, we’re all eating together and it feels like more of an event than mechanically stuffing fuel into myself before going out. Getting that little bit of joy and calmness wherever I can makes me feel so much more connected to the world and this feels invaluable.

A meal I remember

I went round to a friend’s house one weeknight as I hadn’t seen her for a while and she had plans to leave for another city in the near future. It was summer and we decided to have a BBQ in her garden on a little disposable BBQ left over from a party. We improvised with stuff we already had in that needed using up- I brought round a load of broad beans that I had a glut of from my garden and then a bunch of veg that was on it’s way out. She had a load of veg too and we got it all out and prepared it together, deciding what we’d do with each thing as we went along. I love doing this as it feels creative and it’s so nice to share ideas with someone else about how to prepare things (even if you disagree). Also it cost us next to nothing but we ended up preparing a banquet just for the 2 of us, all out of stuff that might otherwise have ended up getting thrown away. We went outside and put it on the BBQ, but we live in England so even at the height of summer it started chucking it down. We left the BBQ on the floor under a table and went and sat inside, watching it smoking through the rain, hoping our food would cook.  It was still balmy and light outside. We chatted while we waited for stuff to cook and picked at bits that didn’t need cooking. It was fun to dash out in the rain to get the cooked bits and then lay them out on the table. It took so long for dinner to be ready but in this time we had really interesting conversations about the world and things going on in our lives whilst working to make something together. We talked a lot about future plans and I felt inspired by all of her plans and how she was making them happen.  We also came up with a new snack by accident! We left some of the broad beans in their pods on the BBQ for too long and then when shelled, they came out all smokey and lovely. We put them in a bowl with some salt and they were delicious to pick at.

On it’s own, sharing this particular meal didn’t bring some sort of epiphany. It was a lovely evening with an interesting and inspiring pal but not some groundbreaking event. Its significance comes as being just what it was, a fairly normal event but one we took time out to do, rather than staying in because we felt like we didn’t have time or it was too much bother and just messaging each other instead.

 

Recipe

VEGAN NETTLE GNOCCHI

I made this one up after a pal invited me out for a walk, to go and pick some nettles with her at the very start of the summer, as she wanted to make some tea. It was a bloody lovely afternoon and I think of it when I make this recipe. This is also a great one to prepare with someone else. It’s a bit fiddly to do at the end so you can work as a team, have nice chats and get it done more quickly.

Ingredients:

• 3 large handfuls of nettles (leaves only- be sure to pick early in the season when they’re young and tender)
• 1 large baking potato
• ½ cup soya milk (or any other milk substitute. Water might actually work too, give it a go)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tsp cider vinegar (or lemon juice, whatever you have to hand. I reckon white wine vinegar would work too)
• Salt to taste
• About 300g plain white flour. Have quite a bit more to hand though, just in case. Flour measurements for this sort of thing can never really be accurate as there are so many variables- the exact size of the potato, the exact amount of nettle leaves, even the ambient humidity of the room can affect the amount of flour needed. So maybe have about 500g available to you, just in case. You can use wholemeal flour but it makes them a lot heavier.

Method:

• Bake the potato in the oven for a good hour or so. It needs to be soft and fluffy inside and then you need to let it cool. (Tip- have baked potatoes for dinner the night before and just bake an extra one and put it in the fridge until you need it). Once the potato is baked and is cooling get started with the other bits.
• Boil the nettles for 5 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water.
• Put the nettles in a food processor with the soya milk, the oil, the vinegar/ lemon juice and salt and then blitz until smooth. If you haven’t got a food processor you could just chop the nettles up really finely and then mix then things together yourself.
• Scoop the potato out of its skin and evenly combine them with the nettle mixture in a large mixing bowl.
• Add the flour slowly until it forms a dough that is soft and springy but not sticky
• This is the stage where it’s best to recruit a pal. Put some flour on a work surface. Split the dough into tennis ball sized pieces and then roll them into long sausages. Chop the sausages into pieces about 2 inches by 2 inches and then roll each piece in your palms into a little ball. Put them to one side on a floured plate but try to make sure they don’t touch each other if possible. Get someone to help you here as it can take a while and be a bit repetitive!
• Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil then reduce it to a simmer. Put the gnocchi you have made in and leave them until they rise to the top of the water. This should take about 5 minutes. Drain and serve!
• I think these are nice served with olive oil, fried garlic, lemon zest, chilli flakes and spinach. Or you can just leave the lemon zest, chilli and spinach out and just add salt and pepper. Try using spinach in place of nettles outside of nettle season.

image from Ta