Some Math

Overview

In Some Math, the syncopations of poetry meet the (ir)regularity of mathematical equations. Consider the “story problems” of high school math class. When encountering the word “and,” replace it with the addition symbol “+.” When encountering the word “of,” replace it with the multiplication symbol “x.” Now reverse the process. The result is a series of sound poems that both employ and interrogate the global language of systems and networks. Astrophysics. Computer science. Short tetrameters. Long dactyls. 9/11. US military strategy. The energy pathways of acupuncture. The fish ladders of Gmail. The wires and electrodes of torture. The swirling products of global capital. Mathematician Benjamin Pierce called his field “the science that draws necessary conclusions.” You do the math.

Reviews

"Some Math is a paradox: it often feels like a temporally misplaced work of high modernism, even as its allusions are drawn from the recesses and abscesses of twenty-first-century culture. Its many aesthetic contradictions, however, and more importantly Luoma’s willingness to persist amid them, are the engines of its success."--Kevin Moore

Author Biography

Bill Luoma is the author of SOME MATH, WORKS & DAYS, DEAR DAD,  Swoon Rocket , and  Western Love .