Null Set

Ted Mathys

ISBN 10: 1566894034 / ISBN 13: 9781566894036

Published by Coffee House Press, 2015

About this Item

Null Set collects the slightly obsessive possibilities that rise when we give them the space-odd jobs, trouble-making, and farm boy rambling, all in dialogue with mathematics, or William Faulkner, or other poets. From "Hypotenuse": HYPOTENUSE I write three, erase it, blow rubber shavings from the desk. Write its notation, erase it, blow shavings. Then three 3s erased, shavings blown, persist for the nonce, three of nothing, nowhere attending to discrete objects for counting, themselves objects at any rate. To kiss, sleep, and focus we know to close our eyes, imagine. I do, see nothing.

Seller Inventory # CIN1566894034G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Null Set
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566894034
• ISBN 13: 9781566894036
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Null Set experiments with cool lyric surfaces—mathematical forms, axiomatic thinking, tropes of negation—until they rupture unexpectedly, allowing in the warmth of intimacy, fatherhood and spiritual hunger.

Null Set collects the slightly obsessive possibilities that rise when we give them the space—odd jobs, trouble-making, and farmboy rambling, all in dialogue with mathematics, or Faulkner, or other poets. Mathys musters the tropes of nursery rhymes and childhood observation to build reflections that lead to dark, complex work that’s provocative, rhythmic, and a little sly.

About the Author

Ted Mathys is the author of two previous books of poetry, The Spoils and Forge, both from Coffee House Press. The recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Poetry Society of America, his work has appeared in American Poetry Review, BOMB, Boston Review, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MA in international environmental policy from Tufts University. He lives in Saint Louis and teaches at Saint Louis University.