Laynie Browne : on Daily Self-Portrait Valentine

 

 

 

 

My Daily Self-Portrait Valentine project began when I saw a show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in early February of 2024, by the artist Melissa Shook, who during the 1970's did a project where she took a photograph of herself every day for a year. Many of these were nudes, all black and white, mostly shot in her New York City apartment against a blank wall, sometimes with a plant, and sometimes including her young daughter.

I found the work incredibly moving, and on the spot decided that I'd create a self-portrait every day for a year, and that I would begin on valentine's day, 2024 and finish on valentines day, 2025. My intention was a commitment to myself—to a durational project that was a love letter to the essential invisible inner being, and the hope to approach, draw near, make and stay in contact—with those ineffable aspects of "Self."

I also wondered why it was that I did not only dislike the idea of creating a self-portrait, but felt a strong aversion to the project, even revulsion or disgust. The concept, to me, was shameful. But what exactly was shameful? An image of a woman, myself, or the idea of confronting one's reflection in a series of writings, drawings, collages, paintings and photographs? I wondered why I could not think of many examples of female poets who created self-portraits in writing.  I wondered what I might learn through this process.  I thought about the classic Buddhist meditation technique of mirror gazing. I remembered one teacher telling me that women she'd worked with who were victims of abuse had violent reactions when she gave them mirrors for this practice. The women flung them to the floor in anger and frustration. They did not want to see themselves.

What was it exactly I had been avoiding? The imperative to find out was suddenly urgent. My resistance to the act of self-portraiture was my catalyst and prompt. What was underneath this nearly paralyzing dread? I vowed to investigate through daily practice. Every day for one year I created self-portraits in writing and in visual mediums. All of the writing, collage, drawing and painting was made in notebooks in the early morning. Mostly, I was attempting to contact that essence of "Self" which is beyond the physical, beyond thought, the changeless unnamable aspects of being. This timeless spiritual question—"who am I"—is one which I am endlessly attracted to—the exact opposite of the idea of "what do I look like."

The act is to finally look at what I've been avoiding, possibly avoiding for all of my life. To approach the question: why the idea of rendering oneself in one's art appeared to me abhorrent. And then, to turn that into its opposite. An attempt at self-acceptance, self-love. To say the word valentine softens the premise. To reflect on what's actually there, is a "pre" "face" to what is not visible in the physical form but defines us nonetheless—the face we present before having a face. Not what has happened to me, not how many years I've revolved around the sun, but what do I make of this self, here, and now.

Later when I read more about Melissa Shook, and a statement she wrote about her daily self-portraits I was struck by what she wrote about her mother:

"Having forgotten my mother, what she looked like, what she was like, how she treated me before she died when I was twelve, has been an abiding concern. Not remembering meant, to some extent, having to create a self without the foundation of remembering much about those first twelve years and trying to raise a daughter without remembering having been a child."

Also much later, I realized that of course I'd been inspired by Bernadette Mayer's important work Memory. Mayer's work Memory is not "self-portraits," yet the durational nature of the work, the vast quantity of photographs and writing, and the audio recording played in a gallery where the photographs were displayed—are all important influences, as is her entire oeuvre.

In my own self-portraits, I quickly learned that though I'd always hated being photographed, that when I photographed myself, that impediment was removed. It was only me behind the camera, so what did I have to fear?  For the first time, I relaxed. Wanting to share this experience, I began to photograph friends, always beginning with a conversation in which I asked these friends, primarily female poets, what was the photograph they'd always wanted of themselves. I wanted to know how these women wanted to be seen—and to create the photographs for them based on their visions. This collaborative process is one I am continuing beyond the year-long durational project.

Currently Daily Self-Portrait Valentine exists as more than four hundred pages of writing, thousands of photographs, and hundreds of drawings and collages. My hope is to create an audio recording of the writing to be played in various settings where selections of the artwork will be displayed, as well as print versions of this work.

 

 

 

 

Laynie Browne’s recent books of poetry include: Apprentice to a Breathing Hand (Omnidawn, 2025), Everyone & Her Resemblances (Pamenar, 2024), Intaglio Daughters (Ornithopter 2023), and Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists (Wave Books, 2022). She co-edited the anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues Press) and edited the anthology A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel (Nightboat). Honors include a Pew Fellowship, the National Poetry Series Award for her collection The Scented Fox, and the Contemporary Poetry Series Award for her collection Drawing of a Swan Before Memory. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

rob mclennan : Interview with Laynie Browne

 

rob mclennan: You mentioned recently that your next collection, Apprentice to a Breathing Hand (Omnidawn, 2025), is a response text to the work of poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. I’m fascinated by your exploration of the book-length response text, whether your In Garments Worn By Lindens (Tender Buttons Press, 2018) composed as a response to Lawn of Excluded Middle by Rosmarie Waldrop, Intaglio Daughters (Ornithopter Press, 2023) as a response to the book The Unfollowing by Lyn Heijinian or Everyone and Her Resemblances (Pamenar Press, 2024) as a response to the epic structures and purposes of Alice Notley. How did you get on this path of composing book-length responses to particular poets and their works?

Laynie Browne: I think it began with a tremendous sense of gratitude, to be here in this time, with these particular poets. Unmistakably my life as a poet is possible, in large part, because of these female poets. The first homage text I wrote was for Bernadette Mayer. I was re-reading The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters, as a young mother, and I was amazed. Thus began my book The Desires of Letters. I’m writing another book for Bernadette now, which I began on the day of her passing.

My dear friend, the extraordinary poet Stacy Doris, who left us much too soon, told me when her first book came out, that one poet she greatly admired appreciated the book, and that was more than enough for her. I just love this way of thinking of poetry as intimate and written not only to any reader, but also to a particular reader.  Many years later the poet Sawako Nakayasu, also a friend whose work I admire greatly, echoed this idea of an audience of one. When I wrote the book for Bernadette I didn’t know that I would continue in this vein, and it was many years before I wrote another homage text. Sometimes there is a very specific formal relationship between my book and a book by the writer I am writing for, and other times the relation is more conceptual or oblique. 

rm: I completely understand the poem-as-prompt, as well as the beauty of being able to respond to the work of a particular writer while utilizing an echo of their forms. As you’ve been working through these projects, what do you think is possible through these responses that might not be possible through, say, working an essay, even one that might be considered more lyric? Have there been elements that have surprised you as you’ve worked your way through?

LB: I’m always surprised by what happens when I write. Maybe that’s one reason I continue.  I like writing into the unknown, or maybe I should say, that seems to be the way I can write. What happens with these homage texts is that my attention in reading becomes heightened. It’s an amazing gift to spend time with poets whose work I love. I do think of this writing project as a dedicated intentional reading practice. As to comparing what I’m doing here to writing essays, that’s an entirely different mode. I’m not writing on, or about, or in an expository sense at all.  What is miraculous to me is the way the reading makes my writing possible.

rm: What prompted you to respond in such a way to a specific book-length work through your own book-length work? And how do you think these projects have shifted the writing you do outside of these particular projects?

LB: I really don’t know, except to say that I tend to write book length manuscripts without planning to do so. I seem to need plenty of space to write through a concept or question. I’ve never really written individual short poems, except for sonnets, and these also seem to be in communication with each other, not necessarily stand alone pieces. The greatest shift I note at this time is that I’ve continued to think and write in this way for several years now, and not really written much outside the context of homage texts. Even now, when I think ahead, I’m thinking about books I want to write for particular poets. The only exception is when I write prose works of fiction or non-fiction. I’ve found it extremely rewarding to write through the work of particular writers who are incredibly important to me, and in doing so I have a sense of always being in relation. 

rm: How do these processes begin? Do you dig deep into research through your subject’s work, or a particular work, or simply start riffing off individual pieces? Once you’ve decided on a particular subject or target, how do these projects begin?

LB: For each book the process has been completely different and seems to arrive organically. For instance with The Desires of Letters, I wanted to try the epistolary form that Bernadette had created, along with exploring many of the questions her book evokes, regarding being an artist and a mother. In the book I wrote for Cecila Vicuña (which is not yet published) I began with just one word, indivisible. That word inspired from Ceclia’s work, a concept of the invisible transcribed is inviolable, impossible to separate from what is most hidden and essential, became the title and focus for the book. In Apprentice to a Breathing Hand, the book I wrote for Mei-mei Berssenbrugge I worked closely with the title poem in her book Hello, The Roses, and wove lines from that poem into a series called “Euphoric Rose.” The book for Alice Notely arrived in a way that is utterly unique to my experience. I began with a question: what if one were to have a person or divine entity or being one could consult at any time, and always receive an answer. Once I started writing this book, I felt as if I had entered a dark hallway. Someone grabbed my hand and pulled. I was receiving the work, as a form of dictation.

rm: Now that you’ve worked a handful of these projects, how do they see themselves finished? Once a manuscript is completed, or even published, are there ever new questions that occur? Once a project is completed, is it ever complete?

LB: These are important questions because there are always more questions that arise. However, my method of operating is onward. I assume that with each new act of reading and writing I am continuing arcs of investigation. No single book represents more than the duration in which I spent writing it—at least for me. Otherwise, the pressure is immense, and how to “finish” anything?

rm: You mention that your first response work was for and through Bernadette Mayer, a poet you returned to again, for your current project. To return to Mayer’s work, are you responding to a particular and different text, or moving through different questions? With the amount of time passing between that prior project and this current one, have you, as a more experienced reader, simply a different set of questions across her work as a whole?

LB: This new book for Bernadette is more concerned with writing in the immediate aftermath of loss. I don’t recall consciously deciding to do so, but upon her crossing, I immediately began writing sonnets. I notice that I’m also concerning myself with the common problem of facing occasion days differently, writing through the first and second midwinter days, without her present, for instance. My grieving for my father also figures into this book, as they passed only a couple of months apart. I guess one way to tie this new book to Bernadette’s work in general, is that I always think of her as a love poet. And I also identify as a love poet—and elegy is perhaps the most challenging form of love poem that one wishes one never has need of, and yet . . .

rm: Where do you see yourself moving forward, beyond this particular project? Are there poets or structures you’ve already been considering at the back of your head? A project such as this is potentially endless: where and what might next occur?

LB: Thus far I’ve published books for Bernadette Mayer, C.D. Wright, Rosmarie Waldrop, Leslie Scalapino, Alice Notley, Lyn Hejinian and forthcoming is the book for Mei-mei Berssenbugge. I’d like to find publishers for the books I’ve written for Cecilia Vicuña and Hannah Weiner. The next book I have in mind is for Harryette Mullen.

 

 

 

 

Laynie Browne is a poet, prose writer, artist, editor and teacher. Her recent books of poetry include: Everyone & Her Resemblances (Pamenar, 2024), Intaglio Daughters (Ornithopter 2023), Practice Has No Sequel (Pamenar 2023), Letters Inscribed in Snow (Tinderbox 2023), and Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists (Wave Books, 2022). In 2024 a solo show of her collage titled “On the Way to the Filmic Woods” was exhibited at the Brodsky Gallery at Kelly Writer’s House. She co-edited the anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues Press) and edited the anthology A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel (Nightboat). Honors include a Pew Fellowship, the National Poetry Series Award for her collection The Scented Fox, and the Contemporary Poetry Series Award for her collection Drawing of a Swan Before Memory. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of nearly forty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His poetry title, the book of sentences (University of Calgary), a follow-up to the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022), appears in 2025, as do two titles with Spuyten Duyvil. The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

Laynie Browne : from Extremely Busy Afterlife

 

 

 

Company isn't possible if you aren't inhabiting yourself.

I love my pen unconditionally.

Really?  What if it stopped—.

Even discarding broken things is challenging—when we have a history.

Your pen is an instrument with no free will or agency.

Are you saying I want all my relationships to be—.

Not at all—loving your pen is a start.

I have an enormous capacity to—.

And it fucks you up—until you cannot tell your feelings from those of others.

Yes.

Can you appreciate yourself as much as a pen?

Much more—.

You're just having a moment—in a glade of moments.

I messed up some dates.

Your near aftermath of me leaving is like a blanket in reverse.

I hate it.

Just remember that this proximity to death will lesson as it increases.

That makes no sense.

You keep forgetting you aren't in fictive mathematical crying often.

Not obsessed with tears—like I was. Am I doing it wrong—missing you?

Everything is wrong—you feel wrong in your every move—just remember that's all fiction—just like my death is fiction.

I wish this were a novel.

You won't write it—.

That's not what I mean. I wish I could wake up from the accumulating losses.

Yes that's precisely what I advise—and any time you fall into—predicament—wake up—again.

 

 

 

The waste of a word.

Wasted word?

Thrown over by waiting, wastrels.

The word you won't mention.

No naming words.

The word impedes every precipice.

Meaning—.

Not to be hijacked—but to go on igniting pinafores—attending emptiness.

Calling former varieties of starlight.

To stand nearer to—.

An inclination requiring discrete and otherworldly illumination.

But when you speak to me—.

Light scatters everywhere—so much of it—I can see only—.

The color blue yesterday was a signal.

Meaning—.

I'm just trying to communicate by whatever means possible.

Tripping on words again.  Words are transitory.

And doubt—.

Another form of contraction—try this—stand in your own.

Sentences?

Belonging with no belonging—.

Explain.

A friend spoke of accumulation.

And I replied in grave vowels and then—appreciations.

What if you spent an entire day writing letters—by hand—and sent them to persons.

As a constitutional practice—yes—I'll write to L with one of our conversations and to B with whatever I can—images—and to those you owe a book.

You could make a book of letters but start small—the idea of being your hand relating to paper as person.

A winter project for everyone.

To combat the smallness of screens.  How they constrict bodies.

An aside as every side—and I could write beside the fire.  Who has time to write letters.

The one with no time—no distinctions—plenty of unnamed words.

Correspondence was something else—to be sent without expectation.

To send an errand—a visitation—a thread by hand. However—handed—re-install the opposite of precipice. 

Sad—that accumulation of losses—and then—looking up at the sky taking to my father.

And the blue started to light up everywhere—startlingly and unmistakably.

Then a blue 'M' and I thought—that's not from my father—it was from you—.

Like when we wrote our book and I told you—don't worry—the title will light up.

Your blue aura arrived today—so I can see through your deepening—woodstove.

Don't forget my sage advice—get on with your fucking life—and also the way I used
          to say on the telephone—tootle-loo.

 

I want to write a letter to each of your letters.

What you want is your sisters to approximate sentences.

I want to take all of your good advice.

You recognize something in my voice—but I'm the younger sister not the older.

Attempts at slowing thoughts swirling like marbled paper.

My advice isn't good—isn't advice—you are reading my private letters.

I must go through everything—but not "things."

Distracted by 'the time of year thou mayst in me—.'

Commercialism of leaves as the new curbside cereal.

Not cerebral but fragile. 

Not soft or pliable—fire.  Who you were wasn't paper.

Pine, love is not a distanced stitch.

As if hands made anything farther or further.

The difference being—a grace one wishes for especially when meeting calamity.

Ok, all, call, amity.

Words inside of words.

As a calling.

Like a blue couch is a plush threshold.

A bird, an eyedropper, a flower captive in a book.

Like this one.

In a frilled collar.

Fritillary—a tribe of butterflies in the sub family Heliconiiae. Yesterday you saw her—cloudless sulphur-pierdae.

There is a question I want to ask—which is—.

As long as the words are unanswerable.

Several questions, actually all of them illegible.

Or—they frighten themselves away.

Let's start with where you are or are going to be at any given time.

I had what I wanted and couldn't bear it.

Of course—but snap out of it—you also saw how discernment is useful but doubt can be poison and your body isn't always the best judge of itself.

Though honesty isn't anything to be afraid of. SO you want to know how to be many places at once or how to be still and—.

Everywhere—so you don't have to keep rushing.

What is the exact amount of movement—.

To un-spell sinister plots against—now.

Concocted by—?

Humans are inordinately sacrificing of our best gifts.

Do you still call yourself human?

I speak in every tense at once—so what does it matter—.

So you call yourself many things—.

Not the rain.

Which ruins a sacred walk.

Waters it—so stop considering anything to be solved and don't move impulsively.

Move how?

'Innerly.'

And then—.

This other rising you describe—why don't you trust—'relax.'

Only fire lately.

 

 

 

 

 

Laynie Browne’s recent books include: Practice Has No Sequel, Intaglio Daughters, and Letters Inscribed in Snow.  She edited the anthology A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel. Honors include a Pew Fellowship and the National Poetry Series Award. She teaches and coordinates the MOOC Modern Poetry at University of Pennsylvania.