Simultaneously restless and enchanted, the primary speaker of these
poems is a tourist in the truest sense. She finds herself on trains, in
the backcountry of the American wilderness, in crowded European hostels,
and in Vietnam, eating a partially fertilized egg. All the while,
Michigan, the landscape of childhood, serves as
her reference point ("A rustic sort of place I can't back away from").
Inspired by the Buddhist concept of anatta, or "no-self," the speaker
navigates unfamiliar terrain, sparking the question of identity and the
agent of its construction.
The poems ask how through perception the body metabolizes experience.
From this intersection the passionate investigation of consciousness
takes flight, framing the slippage between thinking and being, the feast
of the subconscious and the seeds planted from waking life, the
impermanence of a given moment, versus the materialism of memory, the
reality of isolation despite the presence of a crowd, the influence of
culture versus biology's common baseline.
Drawing from contemporary neuroscience and rare case studies, the poems
illuminate the peculiar interrelated aspects of the mechanisms of the
brain and personality. But there is nothing clinical about these poems,
culled from dreams and memory fragments. The question of consciousness
gives rise to the distinct human
ability to reflect, to invent. Which is what the poems--poignant,
strange, radiating musicality--enact:
someone gropes for the deer mount
its goofy snarl and patchwork hide
a ruse underway laughter in the pantry
the deer lifted into someone's sleep
(from "Staff After Hours")
Not the love a mile underground
on a train that slows into the station
like a sore arm bending, but the kind
boarded on a ship and sailed hard
into the storm we've made of ourselves.
(from "Please do Not Touch")
Gray Matter: 1. the material of the brain. 2. an expression naming an
idea or situation held in shadow. This book tangles with the unknown,
but also celebrates the seductive curiosity its mystery provokes. It is
a love letter from the imagination to the scientists and philosophers
who, despite remarkable attempts, still cannot locate
its source.
