Lord Brain

If I were President I would legalize all sorts of exciting marriages. Today, chief among them would be the History of Neuroscience wedded to the Spirit of Cutting-Edge Poetry. The best man would be Deep Intellect, the maid of honor would be High Feelings, and the groomsmen and the bridesmaids behind them would jump back and forth, exchanging places like a wild dance of negative and positive particles; like the hemispheres of the brain playing dress-up in one another's clothes; like fact in ecstasy drag, and ecstasy in the guise of medical journalism. The vows would be conducted, of course, by Bruce Beasley, who has also authored the text for the service. Take a hint from me: hurry up and RSVP.

Beasley’s remarkable new poems are their writer’s effort at healing the post-Enlightenment rifts between art and science, intellect and passion, faith and skepticism. They are brave and wonderfully extravagant poems, in equal measures sorcery, anatomy lesson, and prayer. He is one of the most searching and original voices at work today.

* author of Spirit Cabinet *

In language so charged and precise it echoes our "neurons' billions of little sizzles", Beasley has written a stunning meditation on the interpenetrations of brian and soul. Through his extensive research we are educated; though his lyricism, charmed, stunned, quickened and soothed; and through his ultimate vision, transported, as "the atoms of unmeaning assemble into form.

* author of The Seconds *

A thought-provoking new collection of poems . . . Intellectually, emotionally, and (e)viscerally—Beasley gets you coming and going. . . . As poetry, Lord Brain is an ecstatic explosion of language. It is a fearless investigation into questions of science and faith. It is difficult and provocative on many levels. Which is exactly why you should read it.