How do we heal the paranoid, distrusting people in our lives (ourselves included)? Take my mother-in-law, an ardent anti-abortionist. Why do such storylines appeal to her? She watches crime shows. Her and my father-in-law love Jeopardy. She suffered a traumatic childhood. After her mother’s institutionalization, she was separated from her siblings and placed in an orphanage. These experiences live on, I suppose, informing her relationship to narrative. Let us spiral in “sound-star tetrahedrons,” as does Mei-Mei-Berssenbrugge in her poem “Singing” (A Treatise on Stars, p. 82). Let us visit the Santa Fe Institute. Berssenbrugge credits the latter with talk of “ETs, … coincidence, spirit molecules, time tunnels and quantum uncertainty” (88).
Tag: Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
Sunday December 27, 2020
Peering at books I received as gifts on Christmas morning, I happen upon A Treatise on Stars, a new collection by poet Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge. Sarah brings word of a friend’s new novel dedicated to our daughter Frances. This same friend authored a book I’ve taught — one I plan to teach again this spring. Time to think about stars and cosmologies. Stars appear in the Berssenbrugge book, as they do in the new Star Wars series The Mandalorian, a show we watch with family. My nephews received a talking Baby Yoda doll for Christmas. Together let us explore together systems of stars. Establish communication among spinning galaxies across the distances of space and time. Listen to each star as it sings.
Trance-Scripts 