Concordance

by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Kiki Smith

Poetry. Art. CONCORDANCE is a new collaborative work by three acclaimed contemporary artists: poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and sculptor Kiki Smith, working with book artist, Anne McKeown. Inspired by Smith's image of a dandelion, whose floating silks she compares to reading, the poem traces agreements and embeddings of human and animal bodies, ideas, dreams and emotion in a concordance of parallel and contingent contexts. "Then it's possible to undo misunderstanding from inside by tracing the flight or thread of empty space running through things." Then what if, in that bond, "images were Eros as words?" In Smith's etchings, reading, as Eros, is drawn as seeds, feathers, star-like explosions, pods, wide-eyed, unblinking owls. "Animals...open their eyes, and a mirror forms on the ground." The effects of the verbal images and gray-blue inked drawings are stunning and other-worldly.

Genres: Poetry

42 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2006

About the author

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (Chinese: 白萱华) is a 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.

Reviews

[hjh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Then it’s possible to undo misunderstanding from inside by tracing the flight or thread of empty space running through things, even a relation that’s concordant” (1)

“I send the interrupted line over the top of space, past the middle cinematically, when you no longer stand what you put up with before” (3)

“When insight comes in a dream, and events the next day illuminate it, this begins your streaming consciousness, synchronicity, asymptotic lines of the flights of concordances…For the first time, I write and you don’t know me” (5)

“Remove anxiousness over persons you yearn for, stepping back to observe, like an animal in the fourth dimension…since animals don’t judge, their evolving cosmic skills are a source of richness for us” (8)

“Numinousness in the psyche emerges as from moronic fields, our wish for the animal tuning to its light or waveform, like the light of sex….When you doubt this, you place a piece of “someone” on a pedestal to examine, a gap. Breathe the shard back into yourself” (13-14)

From Red Quiet

“A person enters, and now my room is encased in dread./ Even so, I was too concerned, like a young girl trying to understand feelings through my feeling./ If existence is vibration, everything creates sound— trees, heart cells./ Listeners, like water, resonate dread in a blue vase, in glasses”

“Friends witnessing grief enter your consciousness, illuminating your form, so quiet comes”

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concordance contains two poems: "Concordance" and "Red Quiet".

"Concordance" is accompanied by the artwork of Kiki Smith. The shape of the book (almost a perfect square) and the size of the type, along with Smith's art, gave "Concordance" the feel of a children's book. Perhaps this is intentional. The contents of "Concordance" begin simply/innocently enough... But quickly develop in their complexity...


"Red Quiet" contains no artwork. Instead, "Red Quiet" is printed on red paper that is so thin it is semi-transparent. The content relating to the bridging of gaps between people, the red paper gives the reader the feeling that we are inside the author, or inside the author trying to feel inside someone else...

1.

I look into his eyes and feel my
awareness expand to contain what he
will tell me, as if what he says is a
photograph of landscape and in my
mind will be a painting of "Hill,"
"Part of the Cliffs," "Purple Hills."

These words are the opposite of
verisimilitude.

[Minnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s poetry reminds me of a kindred spirit. “Your wish to be held in the consciousness of another, like a person waiting for you to wake.” I mean... yes! It’s as if these thoughts have always existed in a subconscious part of my brain, but her words finally elucidated them on paper with such clarity, in such profound nature. I read the limited edition copy with red paper and Kiki Smith’s art too so the experience was extra lovely.

[Scott Whittaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Red Quiet" is maybe my favourite Berssenbrugge poem

[Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning.

[cynthia]

For the first time, I write and you don’t know me.

[Michael Vagnetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the essentials of communication, spaces between, and understanding. When the impact or occurrence of words happens outside of them, poetry is actually not "about words." Instead, words have analogs in nature that need to be mystically understood as transactions of energy, color, and light.

[Knar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just gorgeous.

“If existence is vibration, everything creates sound — trees, heart cells. / Listeners, like water, resonate dread in a blue vase, in glasses. / I send out an emotion of warmth, welcome, the way scientists erase sound with sound.”

[Cynthia Arrieu-King · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I thought no, but then, I thought yes.