Silk Poems - Softcover

Bervin, Jen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1937658724 ISBN 13: 9781937658724

Publisher: Nightboat Books, 2017

Synopsis

In conjunction with Tufts University’s Silk Lab’s cutting-edge research on liquified silk, Jen Bervin wrote a poem composed in a six-character chain that corresponds to the DNA structure of silk; modeled on the way a silkworm applies filament to its cocoon. This poem, written from the perspective of the silkworm, explores the cultural, scientific, and linguistic complexities of silk written inside the body.

About this title

About the Author:

JEN BERVIN is an interdisciplinary artist and poet whose research-driven works weave together art, writing, science, and life. She has published ten books, including Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems. The recipient of a Creative Capital grant, she lives in Guilford, CT.

Review:

“She makes connections between things that most of us would leave unconnected. Her artistry is vast and inclusive, by finesse and intelligence, by curiosity, wonder, forebearance, and vision.” (Mary Ruefle)

“Read Jen Bervin's fascinating Silk Poems one hundred times and you will be given one hundred gifts. A first reading draws the mother silkworm as a metaphor for creativity and resilience. Another reading reveals an elegant letter to Infinity. This sensational book addresses both the past and the future; art and science; the earth and the stars. Everywhere Silk Poems is in incomparable conversation with us.” (Terrance Hayes)

“Two filaments of silk combine to form a single thread. In poems of delicate beauty Bervin inventories multiple strands of a 5,000-year legacy spun from the carapace of a silkworm. To read is to inhabit the continuous reeling of an ancient insect / human tale and to emerge forever changed.” (Ann Hamilton)

“Silk Poems seem to unspool magically from ancient burial practice and philosophy into the future of emerging nanotechnology. This beautiful multi-disciplinary text becomes a meditation on desire and embodiment, on cultural and personal transformation, on the genetic coding of language and the enduring connection of poetic practice to other forms of making.” (Elizabeth Willis)

About this edition

• Publisher: Nightboat Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1937658724
• ISBN 13: 9781937658724
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220