Personal Science

by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

$19.95

What happens when the imagined life and the stories we tell ourselves become terrifying, given our human ability to inhabit both mental and physical worlds? Bertram’s third full-length collection pivots on an extended piece of creative nonfiction, “Forecast,” which shows how obsessive thinking can begin in actual occurrences that are then exploded in the imagination. The science is personal, as the factual is tinted and stylized, filtered through a self grappling with the difficulty of knowing what is “real.”

Format: paperback

 

Add to Cart

Out of stock

Personal Science, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s third collection of poetry, takes us into the world we are already living in: the fear of planes and weather is real, the complications with brothers and lovers is real, the Internet searches are real, as are the discoveries and doubts and imaginative facts that come with their results. . . . With resolute doubleness, Bertram’s verses insist on the mutual influences between the world of the mind and the world outside; these lines move fluidly, flagging uncertainty but not dismissing it.” — Hannah Rogers, Boston Review

“The ability to conjure a made-up world is a trait unique to humans. Personal Science presents readers an approachable way to joyfully meditate on what it means to have freedom of thought. It allows the mundane to be a vehicle for personal transcendence and insists readers decide what to do with their imaginative reality.” — Tom Griffen, The Literary Review

Personal Science keeps the reader guessing, on a quest to assemble the pieces Bertram has provided into a means of understanding an undoubtedly complicated portrait. It is a reckoning, a fragmentary way of examining our complex, confusing existences, and an exploration that leaves readers questioning themselves, too.” — Zoe Kovacs, Coal Hill Review

“Personal Science reminds us of the intimacy of discovery. The challenges then become exploring unknowns while maintaining an existence in them and reacting to information and answers with a mentality that allows one to move forward in life.” — Samantha Duncan, Agape Editions

Praise for the poetry of Lillian-Yvonne Bertram:

“Touched but never bound by singular doctrines of narrative, lyric, or experiment, her poems merge linguistic zeal with capacious imagination.”  — Terrance Hayes, on But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise

“Lillian-Yvonne Bertram . . . lives, brilliantly, with whole heart, whole mind, and whole body, in the contradictions. . . . She shows us . . . that Illusion is the Medium Which Allows Emptiness to Become Something Special, and I love this book beyond loving.”—Sarah Vap, on a slice from the cake made of air

July Open Reading Selection

What happens when the imagined life and the stories we tell ourselves become terrifying, given our human ability to inhabit both mental and physical worlds? Bertram’s third full-length collection pivots on an extended piece of creative nonfiction, “Forecast,” which shows how obsessive thinking can begin in actual occurrences that are then exploded in the imagination. The science is personal, as the factual is tinted and stylized, filtered through a self grappling with the difficulty of knowing what is “real.”

Lillian-Yvonne BertramLillian-Yvonne Bertram’s first book, But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen, 2012), was selected by Claudia Rankine for the Benjamin Saltman Award. She is also author of a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen, 2016) and a chapbook, cutthroat glamours (Phantom Limb, 2013). She holds degrees in creative writing from the University of Utah, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Carnegie Mellon University, and is now assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts – Boston.

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

Additional information

Weight .4 lbs
Dimensions 6 × .5 × 9 in