Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed as "one of the most fascinating female poets of our time" (), Kimiko Hahn is a shape-shifter, a poet who seeks novel forms for her utterly original subject matter and "stands as a welcome voice of experimentation and passion" (). In , Hahn integrates the recent findings of science, ancient Japanese aesthetics, and observations from her life as a woman, wife, mother, daughter, and artist.
Review
"In , Kimiko Hahn moves through the rooms of the mind with an oneiric weightlessness. She also touches concrete ground in the realm of neuroscience, and in the world outside the mind, where love, betrayal, regret, and debilitating loss reside. This is a beautiful and troubling book, a marriage of what matters most: the mysteries buried at our very core and the world that cradles and cuts into us at every turn." Tracy K. Smith
Review
"Darwin on flowers, Darwin on snails, dwarf stars, neurobiology, dolls from Occupied Japan, the weight of a raindrop, the indigo bunting's love song...such a wide-ranging surface of interests! But the surface here always has its roots in love, in its many guises and perplexities...making Kimiko Hahn's not just a portrait of herself, but of herself set in a landscape as large as the world." Albert Goldbarth
Review
"Kimiko Hahn's stunning collection is marked by precision and sharp edges. Inspired by Japanese verse, astronomy, and neuroscience, she blends themes of nature and mind as well as everyday relations with her husband and daughters. Her report on dwarf stars, for example, slides into what her future mother-in-law said about her diminutive stature 'to dissuade him from marrying me.' is a delight to read." Renato Rosaldo
Synopsis
Rooted in meditations on contemporary neuroscience, Brain Fever takes as its subject the mysteries of the human mind--the nature of dreams and memories, the possibly illusory nature of linear time, the complexity of conveying love to a child. In one poem, "A Bowl of Spaghetti," she cites a comparison that researchers draw between unraveling "the millions of miles of wires in the human] brain" and "untangling a bowl of spaghetti," and thus she untangles a memory of her own: "I have an old photo: Rei in her high chair intently / picking out each strand to mash in her mouth. // Was she two? Was that sailor dress from mother? / Did I cook that sauce from scratch? If so, there was a carrot in the pot."
Equally inspired by Sei Shonagon's tenth-century Pillow Book and the latest findings of cognitive research, Brain Fever is a thrilling blend of the timely and the timeless.
Synopsis
Rooted in traditional Japanese aesthetics and meditations on contemporary neuroscience, a stunning new volume from an essential American poet.
Synopsis
is a lyrically ravishing exploration of Kimiko Hahn's life as woman, wife, mother, daughter, and twenty-first-century American artist. Growing out of Hahn's fascination with neuroscience and the latest findings of cognitive research, this collection is a thrilling blend of the timely and the timeless.
About the Author
Kimiko Hahn is the author of eight previous books of poetry, including, most recently, Toxic Flora. She has won an American Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Theodore Roethke Award, and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award. She lives in New York and teaches at Queens College, City University of New York.