#aldo amparán

[akeedia]

— on finished stories & better endings.

Richard Siken, Crush / Aldo Amparán, Brother Sleep / Richard Siken, Planet of Love / Richard Siken, Snow and Dirty Rain

[llovelymoonn]

favourite reads in september so far

aldo amparán the calling

a.r. ammons september drift

haruki murakami (tr. jay rubin) little green monster

kenzie allen end of the trail

katrina moinet nowhere else i need to be

rachel eliza griffith seeing the body: “illusion”

zach williams wood sorrel house

elizabeth alexander body of life: “equinox”

javier zamora second attempt crossing

kofi

[satuniii]

in August, absence

boiled my skin to purple

seeds: 

- Aldo Amparán, ‘‘geneology, or the only poem i'll ever write about my father’’

[kuramirocket]

Aldo Amparán poetry collection, Brother Sleep, is out today. 

In this intimate debut, Amparán explores coming of age through a series of losses: the death of a brother, grandfather, and the disguises worn to meet the world before becoming one’s authentic self. Across lyrics that blend narrative and formal experimentation, Brother Sleep interrogates identity as formed within the family unit, larger social systems, and the spiritual realm, in which “the universe can fit inside an urn | or a casket.” The poems carry readers through various real and psychological spaces: from the bed the speaker once shared with his brother to schools prowled by homophobic bullies to the inner landscapes of insomnia and grief. Part elegy, part queer-awakening story that plays out on the U.S.–Mexico border, the book imagines bereavement as a force interwoven with the body’s living demands: “Some nights I want a mouth to kiss,” Amparán writes.

Aldo Amparán, author of Brother Sleep

How long did it take you to write Brother Sleep?

The earliest poem I wrote that made it into the book was “Primer for a View of the Sea.” About eight years ago, as an undergraduate, I wrote its original draft, forgot about it, and rediscovered it as I was working on my MFA thesis. Most of the poems in the book were created during my last year in the program. It took me another three years after graduation to edit the manuscript to bring it to its current state.

Where, when, and how often do you write?

I usually write at home or at work in early mornings or late nights. There’s something about afternoons that is so distracting. I try to write every day, even if what I write is not meant for anyone to read.

What was your strategy for organizing the poems in this collection?

I found organizing the poems to be the most challenging part of the process. Although I loved it, I was constantly doubting myself. Because many individual poems refuse closure, I wanted the progression of the manuscript to arc toward some kind of acceptance.

What is one thing that surprised you during the writing of Brother Sleep?

Although I expected writing about this period to be emotionally draining, I was pleasantly surprised by how therapeutic it was. It helped me understand many feelings I had avoided. Perhaps ironically, this book helped me find closure.

If you could go back in time and talk to the earlier you, before you started Brother Sleep, what would you say?

For a long time I refused to let go of my poems. I refused to submit them to literary journals and only started doing so after graduating with my MFA. I didn’t feel my work was good enough. I’d tell my past self to trust my work. To dare.

Aldo Amparán is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & CantoMundo. Their work has been widely published in magazines & anthologies, including the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Magazine, & elsewhere.

​Amparán is the current Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry at New Mexico State University.

[jaigeye]

prometheus / congregation, low / blame, gabriels / march of the martyrs, otep / aldo amparán, glossary for what you left unsaid

[roadmotel]

Aldo Amparán, Glossary for What You Left Unsaid

[goreprofonde]

- Aldo Amparán ,Glossary for What You Left Unsaid.

[sophi-aubrey]

Tonight, your face vanished from my mind’s unending mirror.

A blue sadness replaced it.

© Aldo Amparán, This Room Will Still Exist

Giulio Paolini, Académie 3, 1965

Merci @memoryslandscape for this words

[literaryhousepress]

TODAY IS THE BIG DAY! Today is the day we release Cherry Tree, Issue 5! Our fifth issue features work by Lauren K. Alleyne, Aldo Amparán, E Kristin Anderson, John Andrews Kitchens, Matthew James Babcock, Alyse Bensel, Justin Bigos, Tommye Blount, Brooke Champagne, Alan Chazaro, Emily Cinquemani, Kevin Clouther, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Oliver de la Paz, Denise Duhamel, Kelly Dulaney, Cathy Edmunds, Stevie Edwards, Kate Gaskin, Joanna Gordon, Kyle Hemmings, Luke Jacob, Sally J. Johnson, Jane Kim, Ben Loory, Suvi Mahonen, Alicia Mountain, Miguel Murphy, Andy Powell, Kevin Prufer, Dean Rader, Scott Ragland, Nancy Reddy, Phoebe Reeves, Aaron Smith, Alison Stine, Matthew Thorburn, Maureen Thorson, Milla van der Have, Kelly Garriott Waite, Joanna White, Patrick Whitfill, and Claire Yoo. Contributors’ and subscribers’ copies are in the mail and should be arriving any day now. Forgot to subscribe? Do it now! Just follow this link: http://bit.ly/2AlLNnP. And when you get your copy, we’d love if you would post a photo of you with your issue on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram with the hashtag #cherrybomb. We’ll be sharing and retweeting all of them! Thank you so much for helping us to celebrate this wonderful new issue!

[geryone]

Brother Sleep, Aldo Amparán

[goreprofonde]

- Aldo Amparán, Glossary for What You Left Unsaid.

[goreprofonde]

“1. I used to be afraid of Jesus, that holy man in his exact posture, his cranium tilted, indefinitely holey, vine-slashed, a grimace agape in a plea, perhaps asking why his father abandoned him in the portrait my mother made me kneel to & pray. (...) I came out from the dream to a cot of urine, to the face of Jesus in the oiled canvas, nailed to the wall, gawking at my shame. My mother scrubbed my thighs red, bent her knees to watch me recite her great grandmother’s prayer book”

- Aldo Amparán, Dream Journal: Prayer Book.

[goreprofonde]

“Brother. I know nothing but that impermanent rest. How can you do it each time you take & take & wrap your permanence around sleep? Brother, sometimes you terrify me. You make my heart gallop like buffaloes in the white desert, large bodies advancing their fall.”

- Aldo Amparán,Thanatophobia, or Sleep Addresses His Brother, Death.

[goreprofonde]

- Aldo Amparán, Primer for a View of the Sea.

[goreprofonde]

“I’ve been taken bit by bit by being made aware of my body’s absences— all its different holes. Men instilled in me an empty. I’ve grown up without a body of my own. Lost first my belly, my 8-year-old pouch of resin to my best friend’s uncle, his hardness resting hot on my navel, his pulse there a rhythm. I didn’t know shame before. It arrived merciful to fill the gap. Next went the pink between my thighs, inflamed follicles from after school running. I was eleven when he claimed it. My body half the length of his body pressed over the unmade bed, opened to expose my growing aches, my early adolescence, & what I thought love felt like: surrender: cavity: theft. I believed another took my mouth after, a boy my own age at the back of his father’s van, at the parking lot of his temple. His mouth clumsy, open against mine, carved a new space within me. Often, I think about the blankness of it, & how much of myself I gave willingly that morning. I stretch my arms to early spring light. The mattress belches beneath my body, my body shifting to touch my lover’s lips, his wet edges: his mouth: my mouth.”

- Aldo Amparán, Self-Portrait of the Stolen Body.

[goreprofonde]

“We drive my brother to the Gulf of Mexico, his body sand inside a gray basin. I carry him & the road slams a pebble against the window to interrupt our silence. I fall asleep, dream we arrive to find sea and sky traded places. I wake in stillness, already in Matamoros, my mother asleep behind the steering wheel & the shade of oncoming evening softening her face. Here is my brother, still in my hand. In the hard sand of the shore, I give him back to my mother. Great Gulf, here comes my brother, salt of the earth ready to fall into you. My brother: a body made dust that crawled into my bed in thunder- laden nights: a body now scattered. On our way back, silence: a cave collapsed onto me, again, & outside, the river trails this black road home, the arms of the ocean in which my brother sleeps.”

- Aldo Amparán, Primer for a View of the Sea.