Hannah Emerson

Nonspeaking autistic artist and poet Hannah Emerson is from and still lives in Lafayette, New York. Emerson identifies as a neurodivergent poet, and her 2022 book The Kissing of Kissing is the inaugural book in Milkweed Editions’ poetry series Multiverse, which is written and curated by neurodiverse poets. She came to poetry through Multiverse editor Chris Martin’s writing program Unrestricted Interest and continues to meet with Martin over video chat to write two poems a week. Emerson uses what she calls “grounding sounds” as a foundation for her poetic expression and presence, a lyrical repetition that lends itself to the musicality found in her poetry. “Yes” is a crucial part of the fabric of Emerson’s vocabulary, operating as a sort of punctuation between thoughts. Her writing often occurs as a response to her own paintings and articulates her unique experiences and expressions as a neurodiverse individual.