Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (; born October 5, 1947, in

Beijing, China } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

) is a contemporary poet. Winner of two

American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...

s, her work is often associated with the

Language School A language school is a school where one studies a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, for example, communicative competence in a foreign language. Language learning in such schools typically supplements fo ...

, the poetry of the New York School,

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

, and visual art. She is married to the painter

Richard Tuttle Richard Dean Tuttle (born July 12, 1941) is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, casual, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line. His works span a range of formats, from sculpture, painting, drawing, printma ...

, with whom she has frequently collaborated.

Personal life

Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing to Chinese and Dutch-American parents, and grew up near Boston, Massachusetts. She was educated at

Barnard Barnard is a version of the surname Bernard, which is a French and West Germanic masculine given name and surname. The surname means as tough as a bear, Bar(Bear)+nard/hard(hardy/tough) __NOTOC__ People Some of the people bearing the surname Ba ...

Reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * Re ...

, and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. After receiving her M.F.A. from Columbia in 1974, she settled in rural northern New Mexico, which has remained her primary residence ever since.

Poetry

After receiving her degree, Berssenbrugge became active in the multicultural poetry movement of the 1970s along with

Leslie Marmon Silko Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is an American writer. A Laguna Pueblo Indian woman, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance ...

as well as

Ishmael Reed Ishmael Scott Reed (born February 22, 1938) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is '' M ...

, theater director

Frank Chin Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre. Life and career Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940; until the age of s ...

, and political activist Kathleen Chang. Berssenbrugge 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 John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

Barbara Guest Barbara Guest, ''née'' Barbara Ann Pinson (September 6, 1920 – February 15, 2006), was an American poet and prose stylist. Guest first gained recognition as a member of the first generation New York School of poetry. Guest wrote more than ...

James Schuyler James Marcus Schuyler (November 9, 1923 – April 12, 1991) was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection ''The Morning of the Poem''. He was a central figure in the New York School and is of ...

and

Anne Waldman Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activ ...

, and then the Language poets, including

Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) Charles Bernstein (born April 4, 1950) is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary sc ...

, as well as artist

Susan Bee Susan Bee (born January 14, 1952) is an American painter, editor, and book artist, who lives in New York City. In 2015, "Photograms and Altered Photos from the 1970s" were exhibited at Southfirst Gallery in Brooklyn. She had one solo show at Acco ...

. She later joined the contributing editorial board for the literary journal '' Conjunctions''. Berssenbrugge's poetry is known for its mix of philosophical meditation and personal experience, and for moving quickly between abstract language and the concrete particulars of immediate perception. Her poems often contain subtle shifts of grammar and perspective, and Berssenbrugge often works with

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

to produce unexpected juxtapositions. Her work is also known for its exploration of the complexities of cultural and political identity, an interest informed by her own experience of cultural and linguistic displacement.

''Fish Souls''

''Fish Souls'' is Berssenbrugge's first published collection of poems. It was published by Greenwood Press in 1971. Only 100 numbered copies were published. Information about this volume is scarce.

''Summits Move with the Tide''

''Summits Move with the Tide'', subtitled (on the cover of the second edition) ''Poems and a Play'', is Berssenbrugge's second collection of poems. It was published by the Greenfield Review Press in 1974, and later in 1982. The acknowledgments page indicates that some of the poems previously appeared in ''First Issue'', ''Intro 3'', ''East-West Journal'', ''Cathedral'', ''Ash Tree'', ''Gidra'', and ''Greenwood Press''. In contrast to her later books, most of the poems in the collection are short, with only a few carrying over to new pages. Additionally, only two poems are broken into numbered stanzas, a format Berssenbrugge would use in later poems. The poems in the collection are organized into four groups: three groups of poems, and one play, ''One, Two Cups''. The book contains the following poems: Group 1: "Aegean"; "Finn Song to the Bear Ghosts"; "Bog"; "Book of the Dead, Prayer"; "El Bosco"; "Spirit"; "Hopi Basketweaver Song"; "Beetle Is Born, Lives ..."; "Los Sangre de Cristos"; "In Bhaudanath"; "Snow Mountains"; "Red Backs & Autumn Leaves ..."; and "Ghost". Group 2: "Old Man Let's Go Fishing In ..."; "Travelling icThrough Your Country"; "Propeller Sleep"; "Fish & Swimmers & Lonely Birds ..."; "Spaces Are Death"; "The Second Moment"; "The Third Moment"; "Perpetual Motions"; "Leaving Your Country"; "The Old Know by Midsummer"; and "Abortion". Group 3: "Written Before Easter in New York"; "Chronicle"; "Tracks"; "On the Winter Solstice"; "Blossom"; "Hudson Ice Floes"; "Poor Mouse"; "Sky"; and "March Wind". Group 4: The play, ''One, Two Cups''.

''Random Possession''

''Random Possession'' was published by I. Reed Books in 1982. On the contents page the poems are separated spatially into five unnumbered groups (with only the first three listed on the contents page). The pagination bears out the scheme, with one empty page between the groups. The book contains the following poems: Group 1: "Chronicle". Group 2: "The Membrane"; "Rabbit, Hair, Leaf"; "On the Mountain with the Deer"; "The Suspension Bridge"; "Numbers of the Date Become the Names of Birds"; "Spring Street Bar"; "Heat Wave"; "The Intention of Two Rivers"; "For The Tails of Comets"; and "Sleep". Group 3: "The Field for Blue Corn"; "The Reservoir"; "The White Beaver"; "Breaking the Circumference"; "A Deer Listening"; "You and You"; and "Goodbye, Goodbye". Group 4: "The Scientific Method (for Walter)"; "Walter Calls It a Dream Screen"; "The Constellation Quilt"; "Run-off and Silt"; "The Translation of Verver"; and "Commentary". Group 5: "Tail".

''The Heat Bird''

In ''The Heat Bird'', Berssenbrugge shifted to a long-verse format. The book contains only four poems, all several pages long and broken into numbered stanzas: "Pack Rat Sieve"; "Farolita"; "Ricochet Off Water"; and "The Heat Bird". The verso indicates that some of the poems in the book were previously published in ''Conjunctions'', ''Contact II'', ''Roof'', and ''Telephone''.

''Empathy''

''Empathy'' was published by Station Hill Press in 1989, and contains three numbered groups of poems. The verso indicates that some of the poems appeared in ''Bridge'', ''Calaban'', ''Conjunctions'', ''Parnassus'', ''Temblor'', and ''Tyuonyi''. The book is dedicated to Bradford Morrow and Sheffield Van Buren, and contains the following poems: Group 1: "The Blue Taj"; "Tan Tien"; "Alakanak Break-Up"; "Texas"; "Duration of Water"; "The Star Field"; and "Chinese Space". Group 2: "Jealousy"; "Recitative"; "The Carmelites"; "The Margin"; "Naturalism"; and "Fog". Group 3: "War Insurance"; "Empathy"; "The Swan"; "Forms of Politeness"; and "Honeymoon".

''Sphericity''

''Sphericity'' was published by Kelsey Street Press in 1993, and was her second collaboration with Richard Tuttle. The first edition of ''Sphericity'' was limited to 2000 copies, with the first 50 signed by Berssenbrugge and Tuttle and hand-colored by Tuttle. The book consists of six long poems, all with several numbered stanzas: "Ideal"; "Size"; "Combustion"; "Sphericity"; "Experience"; and "Value".

''Endocrinology''

''Endocrinology'' is an

artists' book Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

poem made in collaboration with visual artist

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...

. Forty copies were produced by Universal Limited Art Editions from a maquette made by Berssenbrugge and Smith. The Kelsey Street Press edition, a facsimile of the original book, was limited to 2,000 copies, with the first 60 signed and numbered.

Awards

* 1976

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Fellowship. * 1980

for ''Random Possession''. * 1981

Fellowship. * 1984

for ''The Heat Bird''. * 1990

Award. * 1990 PEN West Award for ''Empathy''. * 1998

Asian American Literary Award The Asian American Literary Awards are a set of annual awards that have been presented by The Asian American Writers' Workshop since 1998. The awards include a set of honors for excellence in fiction, poetry and nonfiction, chosen by a panel of l ...

for ''Endocrinology''. * 1999

Western States Book Award Western States Book Award honored notable works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and translation written and published in the Western United States. The award was given annually from 1984 until 2002. Lifetime-achievement awards were also p ...

for ''Four Year Old Girl''. * 2004

for ''Nest''.

Work

Poetry

* ''Fish Souls''. New York: Greenwood Press. 1971 * Other . * Other ; * Other ISBN I0930901037; 0930901037; 9780930901035 * ''Hiddenness''. New York : Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art. 1987 (A collaboration with

) * ''Empathy''. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press. 1989 * ''Mizu''. Tucson, AZ: Chax Press. 1990 * Other ISBNs: 9780932716309; 0932716318; 9780932716316 (A collaboration with

) * Other ISBNs: 0932716423 (Limited Edition) (A collaboration with

) * ''Four Year Old Girl''. Berkeley, CA: Kelsey Street Press, 1998 * * (A collaboration with

) * * ''Hello, the Roses''. New York: New Directions, 2013. . * ''A Treatise on Stars''. New York: New Directions, 2020. .

Plays

* ''One, Two Cups'', directed by Frank Chin, and published in 1974 in ''Summits Move With the Tide''. * ''Kindness'' (1994), commissioned by the Ford Foundation and staged at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe with the collaboration of Richard Tuttle, Tan Dun, and Chen Shi Zheng.

Chapbooks

* ''Pack Rat Seive''. New York Cambridge Graphic Arts, 1983

Broadsides

* ''The Mouse 5''. IE Poetry Broadside Series Two
Clayton Fine Books
2006. "Issued in an edition of 25 copies of which 20 copies are for sale."

Magazines and journals

* Berssenbrugge, Mei-mei. ''The Mouse'',

Anthologies

* *

References

External links

The Mei-mei Berssenbrugge page
a
Poets.orgMei-mei Berssenbrugge's author page at the Electronic Poetry Center''Mei-mei Berssenbrugge page at Penn Sound''A review
of '' I Love Artists '' by

Ben Lerner Benjamin S. Lerner (born February 4, 1979) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the National Bo ...

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Links at "Intercapillary Space"
– links to Berssenbrugge poems, reviews, talks, recordings

* ttp://www.add-verse.info "Add-Verse" a poetry-photo-video project Berssenbrugge participated in* Hinton, Laura
"Three Conversations With Mei-mei Berssenbrugge"
''Jacket,'' Issue 27, 2005
Sentimental Spaces
On Mei-mei Berssenbrugge's "Nest," by Natalia Cecire

by Jonathan Skinner * Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Poems and prose

''Audience''''Concordance [Our conversation is a wing]''''Concordance [Working backwards in sleep''
published i
Conjunctions
17, Fall 1991 * ''Duration of Water''
''Forms of Politeness''''Hello, the Roses''
published in Bomb issue 117, Fall 2011
''Ideal''
a talk presented by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge at The Poetry Project, St. Mark's on the Bowery, October 1987
''The New Boys''
published in the October 2008 issue o
''The Brooklyn Rail''''New Form''
opening remarks delivered at the "New Forms/New Functions" panel of the Poetry Project's Symposium, ''Poetry of Everyday Life''
''Permanent Home''''Red Quiet; Section 3''''Reservoir''
from ''How 2'', Volume 1, Issue 8, 2002 * ''Starfield''
''Susie, Kiki, Annie''
published i
''Big Bridge''''Tan Tien''
*Mei-mei Berssenbrugge#cite ref-7">''Texas''
''Two Lines''
Reprinted from "A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line," edited by Emily Rosko and Anton Vander Zee

Audio

with

A recording
of Berssenbrugge reading at the University of California, Berkeley
Berssenbrugge reading her poem, ''Texas''

Video

A video
of Berssenbrugge reading at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico, April 1, 1999
A video
of Berssenbrugge in conversation with

Arthur Sze Arthur Sze (; ; born December 1, 1950) is an American poet, translator, and professor. Since 1972, he has published ten collections of poetry. Sze's ninth collection ''Compass Rose'' (2014) was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Sz ...

''Lunch Poems: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge''A video
of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Reading from "Plant Fragments" :: {{DEFAULTSORT:Berssenbrugge, Mei-mei 1947 births Living people Chinese emigrants to the United States Modernist women writers Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Reed College alumni American writers of Chinese descent American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Barnard College alumni American Book Award winners American women writers of Chinese descent