HELEN //
ARMSTRONG
What is art to you??
(click on stuff.)
colonial girl: a newsletter reckoning with personal, ancestral, and colonial history
“Not all boyfriends were foxes, but all foxes were
boyfriends. All foxes belonged to somebody, and it
was up to that-body to decide what to do with their
fox.”
Tender Grapes, Black Warrior Review
“as the Yukon was a very cold place to live, one of the best ways to keep warm
was to throw your male body at another male body and wrestle one another to the floor. the floor wasn’t any warmer but with the friction of the fight it did help.”
was to throw your male body at another male body and wrestle one another to the floor. the floor wasn’t any warmer but with the friction of the fight it did help.”
Infamous and Detestable, Jellyfish Review
“An animal howl tears from beneath her skin: it scores the room. A crescendo, slowly building. Above, the moon sits very low and large. It’s the curve of the earth that makes it appear bigger; it’s the curve of God that makes us appear so small.”
Cycle, After the Pause
“Gregory came right up to me though and ribbited and I looked down at him and ribbited back. I was speaking his language and with that I could imagine he was speaking mine.”
The First to Know, Soft Cartel
“At May’s funeral everyone cried and the whole landscape changed. Rivers of our grief flowed through the valley that the cemetery squatted in, and on the way home, Jason decided we would go by the Humane Society.”
Do You Wonder About Second Lives, Soft Cartel
Do You Wonder About Second Lives, Soft Cartel
“A rain garden absorbs the runoff rainwater from roofs and driveways and lawns and patios. From the sky. According to some studies, they remove up to 90% of the chemicals and 80% of the sediments from rainwater runoff.
That’s a good thing. It means more water soaks into the ground.
That’s a good thing.
That’s a good thing.
See it sinking down, now.”
That’s a good thing. It means more water soaks into the ground.
That’s a good thing.
That’s a good thing.
See it sinking down, now.”
The Troll by the East Bridge, X-R-A-Y
Helen Armstrong (she/her) was born and raised in Pennsylvania but now lives and writes at the base of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. She has an MFA from Brown University where she taught creative writing. She was a 2022 Tin House Scholar and her work has been published in Black Warrior Review, Jellyfish Review, and others. She lives with her wife, two cats, and several dying houseplants.
Find her in bite-sized pieces on Twitter @hkawrites, or find her in the mist, wailing, waiting, wanting, hoping.
email me: helenkarmstrong@gmail.com