poems by

Mimi Herman

Poetry chapbook, 42 pages, $11 cover price

OUT OF STOCK

A newer version of this title has been published under a different label.

ISBN: 978-1-59948-388-7

Released: 2012

Mimi Herman

Mimi Herman is the author of The Art of Learning. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review,Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review, The Hollins Critic and other journals. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. Mimi has worked as an arts and education consultant since 1990, engaging over 25,000 students and teachers with writing residencies, as well as providing extensive professional development for teachers and teaching artists. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Vermont Studio Center.

Mimi does her own carpentry and plumbing, and can milk a cow and a goat, though not at the same time. You can find her at www.mimiherman.com.

After every reading by Mimi Herman, I would overhear someone ask to buy her book. Being one of those people who wanted a book of her work, I’m thrilled to recommend Ms. Herman for the Author’s Choice Series. She’s a writer whose work is witty and deep—a rare combination indeed.Logophilia will make you fall for words again. You’ll say yes to poetry that is at the same time accessible, powerful, and fun. Many people think of poetry as a secret society, but Mimi makes it a party to which all are invited, and you’ll want to stay ‘til dawn..

-Malaika King Albrecht

The Visualizing Mind
Has No Word for No

Try not to think of a banana.

Whatever you do, do not imagine a banana
with its greeny-yellow peel
and firm flesh.

Or one that has succumbed
to brown spots and a certain laxness of texture.

Please, under no circumstances,
imagine a banana, a single banana
on your kitchen counter.

Where there is also, coincidentally, not
a piece of chocolate cake, thick with frosting,
the last piece of chocolate cake, as alluring
as a showgirl leaning against the backstage door
asking if you can give her a lift.

Say to yourself, I will not eat that piece of chocolate cake,
that last piece. I don’t need it.
And as soon as you’ve opened your mouth, it’s gone,
startling you with the swiftness
with which each bite leaps onto the fork and is conveyed
to your mouth to descend down some long dark road
that leads directly to your hips,
where it will take up residence for a good long time

because morning after morning you will remind
yourself not to sleep in, and will miss the gym,
which is probably not a bad idea
since it gives you more time to tell your children
not to touch the stove and to get out the salve
that you’ll surely need.

Logophilia

I love everything about words,
the way they roll across the palate
and off the tongue,
the way the sometimes unpalatable ones
can’t be swallowed, like Demosthenes’ stones.
They sweeten the bitter, they sour the sweet.

I love the way words mate in my mouth,
butter and fingers, even and song,
or play in the park,
the way jump and rope join
and go skipping down the street.

I even like the way words can wound the sound,
as when I wound my watch, when tick turned into tock.
The click of a clock is enough to send me spinning.

There are days when I hover above
my love for words, even
the words I’ve befriended,
before I’m brave and dive,
before I’ve descended
into the way words can easily mean
other than what they intended.

The Dead Bury the Dead

The dead are burying the dead
with small abandoned shovels borrowed
from children’s sandcastles.

Remarkably patient, they dig until dawn,
then replace the shovels in time
for the mothers, over breakfast, to remind

the children to bring in their toys.
Boys will, in fact, be boys
and girls will remain girls,

while the dead remake the world as we sleep,
knowing it is their job to keep
grief buried, one small shovelful at a time.

If you would like to read more of Logophilia by Mimi Herman, order your copy today.