Books

My debut poetry collection, Mechanics of a Gaze, was published by Mansfield Press in 2017. My second collection, The Arithmetic of Flesh, is forthcoming from Linda Leith Publishing in May 2027.

What does the body remember when a life is lived between languages, countries, and generations?

In The Arithmetic of Flesh, Branka Petrovic explores the intimate mathematics of inheritance: the histories carried in our bodies, the languages that shape our mouths, the landscapes that become part of us. The poems move from forests and climate catastrophe to breastfeeding, illness, motherhood, immigration, war, and the strange experience of writing in a language that is not your own.

Tender and unsettling, playful and incisive, the collection finds connections between a cherry pit and a crime scene, a tree and a mother, an accent and a border.

The Arithmetic of Flesh is a book about displacement, belonging, and the countless ways we learn to call somewhere home.

A sophisticated and immersive exploration of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, Mechanics of a Gaze (Mansfield Press) delves into his life, his artistic process, and his complex relationships — particularly with his close friend and confidant, fashion designer Emilie Flöge.

Drawing inspiration from objects left behind in Klimt’s estate — photographs, paintings, sketches, and over 400 postcards he wrote to Flöge — the poems explore themes of art, desire, autonomy, and the male gaze, as well as the eroticized portrayal of the female body in early 20th-century European art.

Mechanics of a Gaze imagines the day-to-day life of one of the most important painters of the 20th century, crafting an original narrative that blurs the line between muse and maker.

The collection also captures the spirit of the Vienna Secession, celebrating a pivotal moment in art history while reflecting on how we look—and are looked at.

Mechanics of a Gaze is available online through major booksellers and independent retailers.

the Reviews:

“Branka Petrovic’s debut collection reinvigorates Gustav Klimt and Secessionists’ art. You will never look at the stale gold and mosaic looking greeting cards of Klimt the same. I find Mechanics of a Gaze as invigorating as was the poetry of Sylvia Plath in the 1960s. My guess is that we’ll be hearing more from Branka Petrovic.”

Kathryn (Kate) MacDonald, July 2019

“Attentive and questioning, Petrovic moves slowly, like the artist himself, stepping back and forth, toward and away from the canvas, considering at once the details and the wider view. Mechanics of a Gaze is an extended meditation on visual representation and how a gaze is an expression of a self.”

Abby Paige, mRb, Summer 2018

“Branka encourages us to see past the nude form as Klimt saw her. Her critique of his perspective is sharp and profound. Mechanics of a Gaze demands that we collectively revisit our favourite artists and question the power dynamics at play. Who is being watched? Who is doing the watching? And what does it mean to be a viewer or a subject?”

Jean Mathew, broken pencil, July 2018

“Branka Petrovic gets Klimt—she gets inside the gorgeous horror, the lavish violence of his paintings. That she embodies his work and his era in a poetry as ornate, as startling, as boldly sexual, as his art, impresses. That she does so through interrogation, even judgement—particularly of the male gaze—makes this a remarkable, and remarkably mature, first book. Provocative, elegant, and unsettling, Mechanics of a Gaze will leave no reader untouched.”

Stephanie Bolster, author of A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth

“Rich in imagery and sound, Branka Petrovic’s Mechanics of a Gaze is a lush, layered, and carefully-curated collection of poems about Gustav Klimt. Animating found material and showing careful attention to the material culture of the Secessionist period in Vienna, Petrovic has written a collection steeped in history and aesthetics, one sharpened by a contemporary, deliciously-ambivalent gaze. Intertwining threads of art, sex, fashion, scandal, and looted works, Branka Petrovic’s Mechanics of a Gaze “blooms / bravura.””