Demystifications

Poetry. "DEMYSTIFICATIONS is a circle of keys; a florilegium; a circle of voices engaged in a public conversation whose subject is the transformation of knowledge into a collective organ. Mellis uses aphorism to bring us back to basics--what is the best way to proceed; starting from here? How should we inhabit the present? By excavation; by error; by exaggeration; by gesture; by revolt; by contradiction; by voice; by tone. Fanny Howe and Edward Said; Etel Adnan; Karl Marx and Muriel Rukeyser--Miranda Mellis hosts the living and the dead in a grand conference on the value and practice of wisdom."--Robert Gluck

"With humor and grace; bite and tenderness; these ninety-nine poems structure an archive of a Miranda Mellis mind map. I loved being there with her! 'DEMYSTIFICATIONS is a key ring;' each page a passkey. From Orange Is the New Black to Etel Adnan; from Revital and Tuur's albino goldfish via Marx to Blessing Ngobeni with several visits to Walter Benjamin; the good enough mother; and the public school down the block; Mellis expands the visible--not to hide the cracks; but 'to see the fissure in the fix.' She also gives us the possibility of 'a forgiveness cloak'--a one-size-fits-all-garment--to help us see through other minds besides our own in these darkest of times."--Lynn Marie Kirby

Miranda Mellis is the author of Crocosmia (forthcoming, Nightboat Books); Unconsciousness Raising (forthcoming, Above/Ground Press); The Revolutionary (Albion Books, 2022); Demystifications (Solid Objects, 2021); The Instead, a book-length dialogue with Emily Abendroth (Carville Annex, 2016); The Quarry (Trafficker Press, 2013); The Spokes (Solid Objects, 2012); None of This Is Real (Sidebrow Press, 2012); Materialisms (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2009); and The Revisionist (Calamari Press, 2007).