A Treatise on Stars

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s poems unfold like spacious thought, moving by association rather than argument. The collection invites readers into a meditative attention where perception becomes an ethical practice. Berssenbrugge blends the everyday with the cosmic, making intimacy feel planetary. Her syntax is airy and exploratory, leaving room for the reader’s mind to participate. Images appear, drift, and return with altered meaning, like constellations forming slowly. The poems often consider love not as certainty but as a way of seeing. There is a quiet rigor beneath the openness—an insistence on honesty about what can’t be simplified. The work rewards rereading, as lines deepen with familiarity. It’s less about statement than about presence, a sustained listening. The overall effect is luminous and calming without ever being complacent. It is poetry that thinks, feels, and breathes at once.