Summits Move With The Tide: Poems and a Play

by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Subtitle: Poems and a Play

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

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

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tang tang tang tang tang tang tang
ting ting ting ting ting
I eat a goat

bite into the flesh
of the spirit of the island

brown-eyed spirit flies
into emptiness
like an empty goat skull

odor of sea shells.

- Aegean, pg. 9

* * *

If your eyes fall
let them
if the thigh bone
takes off the hollows out
it makes a good flute

if your shining
amber skull
fills with liquid
you know

it is clean
water
from the mountain

- In Bhaudanath, pg. 18

* * *

When we walked outside at sunset
a tenement was burning to the ground
water tore bricks from the walls
and ashes fell in my hair
I wore your big goosedown jacket
and hugged my sleeves watching
from behind a playground fence
them rampant light.

- Abortion, pg. 34

* * *

Ant on the end of a pin waving at empty space
I wait at home this morning
turquoises tapping my earlobes
I attach the walrus postage stamps one after another
If I did not feel the need for a next moment
a next word from someone thinned with travel
opening of the hay fern
some new soap
I would not feel lonely
I would gather all these gestures and drag them in
I would light them
I want to be sky over the flames.

- Sky, pg. 47

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

odor of sea shell

[Mills College Library]

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