Four Year Old Girl [Paperback]

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998

Poetry. Asian American Studies. In this extraordinary 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Berssenbrugge has quietly written some of the most stylistically consistent and elegant poems of the last decade. Her latest volume, a related series of poems composed of her signature stretched-out lines, start from the concrete?an insect, a fish, a girl?and proceed to reveal how boundaries we think solid (of bodies, of images) are fluid and unstable: "You place sixteen girls/ in a meadow and always fill it. They're everyone, the world. Implicit promise. Her image of you, a transparency on her desire, is like a contact print of irises on film.... this is feeling used as thought,/ beautiful because of my attempt to contain it." As with earlier books like The Heat Bird (1983) and Empathy (1987), Berssenbrugge's latest offering is more than just contemplative and pretty. Among the philosophical considerations that fill her lines are the limits of identity, how seriality works in art, and the mechanics of memory. In the title poem, Berssenbrugge meditates on the what makes a self a self: "The genotype is her genetic constitution...She believes she is herself, which isn't complete madness, it's belief." The drawback of Berssenbrugge's taste for abstract inquiry is that her poems occasionally resemble logical proofs, prone to vague generalization ("Define nature as the greatest point of alienation from spirit"). But, in the main, Berssenbrugge's probings yield radiant conclusions. Readers looking to be ravished by the beauty of sound and image?and willing to wrestle with some demanding philosophical conundrums?should look no further.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Born in Beijing and the recepient of two American Book Awards as well as a Pen West Award, Berssenbruge writes poetry that is at once dreamlike and physically exact. Her new work is her most ambitious yet and a good place to start for anyone who wants to venture beyond the mainstream.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 78 pages
• Publisher: Kelsey Street Press; 1st edition (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 093271644X
• ISBN-13: 978-0932716446
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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