Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
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Mei-mei Berssenbrugge is an influential contemporary poet. Winner of two American Book Awards, her work is often associated with the Language School, the poetry of the New York School, phenomenology, and visual art. She is married to the painter Richard Tuttle, with whom she has frequently collaborated.
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[edit] Life
Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing in 1947, but grew up in Massachusetts. Her work is known for its exploration of the complexities of cultural and political identity, an interest informed by her own experience of cultural and linguistic displacement. She was educated at Barnard, Reed, and Columbia University. After receiving her M.F.A. from Columbia in 1974, she settled in rural northern New Mexico which has remained her primary residence since then.
After receiving her degree, Berssenbrugge became active in the multi-cultural poetry movement of the 1970’s along with her good friend Leslie Marmon Silko as well as Ishmael Reed, theater director Frank Chin, and political activist Kathleen Chang. Berssenbruuge taught at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, where she co-founded the internal literary journal Tyuonyi. Traveling frequently to New York City, Berssenbrugge became engaged in the rich cultural flourishing of the abstract art movement, and was influenced by New York School poets John Ashbery and James Sherry, and then the Language poets, including Barbara Guest, Anne Waldman, Charles Bernstein, as well as artist Susan Bee. [1]
[edit] Work
Berssenbrugge's volumes of poetry include The Heat Bird (Burning Deck Press, 1983), Empathy (Station Hill, 1989), Sphericity (Kelsey Street, 1993), Endocrinology (Kelsey Street, 1997--a collaboration with Kiki Smith) Four Year Old Girl (Kelsey Street, 1998), and Nest (Kelsey Street, 2003). The University of California Press published I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems in early 2006.
Berssenbrugge's poetry is known for its mix of philosophical meditation and personal experience, for moving quickly between abstract language and the concrete particulars of immediate perception. It is also known for its subtle shifts of grammar and perspective. Berssenbrugge often works with collage to produce unexpected juxtapositions.
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Mei-mei Berssenbrugge's author page at the Electronic Poetry Center
- An interview with Berssenbrugge in Jacket
- A recording of Berssenbrugge reading at the Lannan Foundation.
- A recording of Berssenbrugge reading at Small Press Traffic.
- A recording of a reading and conversation with Charles Bernstein
- A recording of Berssenbrugge reading at The University of California, Berkeley.
- A review of I Love Artists
