DESCRIPTION

Poetry. “‘The external World is fitted to the Mind,’ wrote Wordsworth. The terse, startling poems of HOW THE BRAIN GREW BACK ITS OWN HISTORY agree, and add the body to that mix. In tantalizing language and gnomic pronouncements they explore the membrane between body and mind, between mind and world, and between world and body. Who needs a heart transplant when your body replaces it every seven years? ‘You teach the new heart the old heart’s stories. It listens.’ We listen, too, as the poet becomes one of the paired faces in the famous optical illusion, framing the imaginary vase between–‘And I can’t tell // if I should put my life in it, or flowers.’ HOW THE BRAIN GREW BACK ITS OWN HISTORY records how the whole world listens, hushed, fragile, and enduring, conscious of its beautiful mortality”–Jay Rogoff.