ERIN GIDMAN: Haiku Obsession Results
Name,pronouns and anything else about you
Erin Gidman, my pronouns are she/her, ummmmmm anything else about me…..?
Height? Imagine it’s Grindr
Yeah 5’7, Cancer Sun, Virgo Moon, Scorpio Rising
Aside from a poet what else are you, hobbies interest?
Aside from being a poet, I would call myself a writer more so than a poet just cause a lot of it comes out of nowhere. A lot of the things I end up writing and stream them together all stem from a stream of consciousness for the most part. If I’m trying to write a song with a specific cadence or rhythm to it, I might stop and be like, what rhymes?
Do you play instruments as well?
Yes, I play bass and guitar and I've been at a very mediocre level of Garage Band for way too long now, I need to dabble and learn more. I have that little synthesizer that every bitch who says they make music has.AKAI MPK MINI, shout out to them, I’m not even kidding, every hoe who’s like “i mAkE mUsIc” will have that in their room somewhere.
When did you write your first poem?
I remember getting really fascinated with the idea of haikus when I was young. When I was really young, I was a hoarder and I would write down little notes everywhere and save them and collect like fortune cookies and write down haikus everywhere. I was obsessed with just having printed words, like binders full of words. The cool thing about haikus that drew me in was the format, 5-7-5 syllables. It was super straight forward, it kind of made it seem if you can do that you can write a poem and I was like, oh shit that sounds really alluring.
Why do you continue to write?
I continue to write, and I think for the rest of my life I have to write, because I will just go insane, I will explode.The amount of times I just have blurb thoughts, observations or silly sensations and experiences, I want to document or try to describe as much as I can and just put it on paper to get it out of my brain. I would lose my mind, i would fucking lose my mind if i didnt continue to write. But that's not to say that I write every single day, I’ve gone months but whenever I do it I’m like, Oh I gotta do this more.
Can you only write in a specific location? What is your process to write a poem?
So one of my favorite things to do in the pre-COVID19 era was to go to bars and write. I really love going to a bar around like 4:30p.m./6 p.m. like happy hour style or in the middle of winter because who fucking cares if you’re sitting at a bar by yourself. I would just get a cocktail and just open up my notebook and start writing about whatever. And the fun thing in a bar, in a setting like that, as long as it’s not an overwhelmingly crowded place, you know like a medium to low traffic bar, you can hear people’s conversations. Your ear can pick up something and it will open a whole world. Other times I like to be in silence or reflecting in the park, I really like going to public places, and having the background noise of people and words.
Has being a poet caused dating problems?
No, because I don’t really have a dating life. I mean I've never been in a relationship in that aspect. But in the aspect of literally putting myself out there and going to bars, so many times people are like wHaT aRe You WrItINg you know? Fucking dudes will just be like wHat ArE YoU wRiTinG arE YoU a StORyTeLLeR??? They can’t wrap their head around the fact I'm just writing.
Where do you want poetry to go?
I would really like to eventually put out some zines, I would love to digitize. I’m in the process of going through and digitizing a lot of my notebooks because it’s safe in the case of horrible loss but it also gives me a chance to share it.
Where can your poetry be accessed?
My instagram and also on my website