Synopses & Reviews
Her largest, most substantial book to date, "Four Year Old Girl" features eleven extended poems, each written with what has become Berssenbrugge's characteristic elegant, long line -- which hovers between composition and decomposition: "In a world which transcends the confines of her transcient being, she can reach / and bring existences within the compass of her life, without annulling / their transcendence. These invisible entities infuse the visible with feminity, / showing nonlocation by the adjectival status of her mind. You place sixteen girls / in a meadow and always fill it. . . ". (from "Irises"). Artist (and the poet's husband) Richard Tuttle's gouache is on the cover. (A signed special print of the cover art is featured in the limited edition.)
Synopsis
Poetry. Asian American Studies. In this extraordinary new collection of poems by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, writing reflects human presence in the phenomenal world. Physical sensations of experience—a horizon, moisture, a child, a piece of quartz, a loss—become objects of focus and poetic elements. Her written lines, like strings of protein, both create and destroy bonds. Reading affords moments of exquisite vulnerability in which the perceived world is suddenly exposed to the quick. The pace of everday life slips into that of a waking dream. Winner of the 1998 Western States Book Award.
About the Author
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing, China, grew up in Massachusetts, and lives in rural New Mexico and New York City. She is the author of nine volumes of poetry, including I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems (University of California Press, 2006), CONCORDANCE (Kelsey Street Press, 2006), NEST (Kelsey Street Press, 2003), EMPATHY (Station Hill Press of Barrytown, 1989), and THE FOUR YEAR OLD GIRL (Kelsey Street Press, 1998).