Miranda Mellis

Demystifications Miranda Mellis

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