Lord Brain
Poems
Will be published approx. on 11. April 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
112 pages
978-0-8203-2730-3 (ISBN)
Description
Lord Brain is an extended meditation on the psyche (in its double sense of mind and soul) in its relationship to that three-pound bundle in our skull. Bruce Beasley's collection of thirty-one poems is named for Sir Walter Russell Brain, or Lord Brain (1895-1966), the eminent British neuroscientist and author of Brain's Diseases of the Nervous System. Bringing into conversation the disparate fields of neuroscience, theology, linguistics, particle physics, and theology, these poems investigate in both lyrical and scientific terms the relationship of brain to mind and soul, and of brain to the cosmos and God.
Whether discussing cosmology or astrophysics, neurobiology or insect physiology, Lord Brain connects the inner cosmos of our human anatomy with the external forces (material and divine) that brought the cosmos into being.
Whether discussing cosmology or astrophysics, neurobiology or insect physiology, Lord Brain connects the inner cosmos of our human anatomy with the external forces (material and divine) that brought the cosmos into being.
Reviews / Votes
If I were President I would legalize all sorts of exciting marriages. Today, chief among them would be the History of Neuroscience wedded to the Spirit of Cutting-Edge Poetry. The best man would be Deep Intellect, the maid of honor would be High Feelings, and the groomsmen and the bridesmaids behind them would jump back and forth, exchanging places like a wild dance of negative and positive particles; like the hemispheres of the brain playing dress-up in one another's clothes; like fact in ecstasy drag, and ecstasy in the guise of medical journalism. The vows would be conducted, of course, by Bruce Beasley, who has also authored the text for the service. Take a hint from me: hurry up and RSVP. -- Albert Goldbarth Beasley's remarkable new poems are their writer's effort at healing the post-Enlightenment rifts between art and science, intellect and passion, faith and skepticism. They are brave and wonderfully extravagant poems, in equal measures sorcery, anatomy lesson, and prayer. He is one of the most searching and original voices at work today. -- David Wojahn * author of <i>Spirit Cabinet</i> * In language so charged and precise it echoes our "neurons' billions of little sizzles", Beasley has written a stunning meditation on the interpenetrations of brian and soul. Through his extensive research we are educated; though his lyricism, charmed, stunned, quickened and soothed; and through his ultimate vision, transported, as "the atoms of unmeaning assemble into form. -- Linda Bierds * author of <i>The Seconds</i> * A thought-provoking new collection of poems . . . Intellectually, emotionally, and (e)viscerally-Beasley gets you coming and going. . . . As poetry, Lord Brain is an ecstatic explosion of language. It is a fearless investigation into questions of science and faith. It is difficult and provocative on many levels. Which is exactly why you should read it. -- <i>Olympian</i>More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Georgia
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
154 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8203-2730-3 (9780820327303)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
BRUCE BEASLEY, professor of English at Western Washington University, has won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes in poetry. Among his four previous poetry collections are Summer Mystagogia (selected by Charles Wright for the 1996 Colorado Prize in Poetry) and Signs and Abominations.