New Math

by Cole Swensen, Michael Palmer (Compiler)

Poems deal with art, myth, freedom, nature, parenthood, dreams, music, religion, memory, language, and time

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Cole Swensen (b. 1955— ) in Kentfield near San Francisco, Swensen was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and is the author of over ten poetry collections and as many translations of works from the French. A translator, editor, copywriter, and teacher, she received her B.A. and M.A. from San Francisco State University and a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz before going on to become the now-Previous Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver. Her work is considered Postmodern and post-Language school, though she maintains close ties with many of the original authors from that group (such as Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, Barrett Watten, Charles Bernstein,) as well as poets from all over the US and Europe. In fact, her work is hybrid in nature, sometimes called lyric-Language poetry emerging from a strong background in the poetic and visual art traditions of both the USA and France and adding to them her own vision.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not as good as Noon, but pretty good.

I like this poem:

"you pass a man on the street and years later lose an hour distracted because you picture but can't place him. What do colors do in their private lives? Everything in the world means the world to me and I find this to be mathematically correct. You pass a man on the street and don't even see him. You do this every day of your life. Color is broken light."

[S P · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Math
As if the word everything
meant everything
as all words do.
We refer again to prosopognosia—
that condition in which
the victim cannot distinguish
between faces.
If we could compute the numerical value
of a turning wrist, a sense of shock,
toast on a plate,
paint by number
one picture in a single dimension.
Both portrait and landscape
can trace their ancestry
back to the point.
If every breath
is a separate equation
and yet they all equal zero,
that egg with a vacuum inside,
the insensible which we
sense and call invisible
has succeeded in imaging a new circle,
imagine
any thing in which
each point lies the same
distance from every other. (19)

from Crowd Scenes
How many times must you see
a face before you think
you've seen it all your life

Someone walks onward and
the footsteps land inside your wrist. (23)

You Pass a Man on the Street
You pass a man on the street
and years later lose an hour distracted
because you picture but can't place him.

What do colors do
in their private lives?

Everything in the world
means the world to me
and I find this to be
mathematically correct.

You pass a man on the street
and don't even see him.
You do this every day of your life.

Color is broken light. (46)

A Long Story
There must have been two people.
If light travels over
1,000 miles to strike a face.
A core sample of
undeveloped film reveals
weather patterns unseen
by the naked eye.
I guess they loved each other.
An address divisible
by only itself and one.
Each race stores its history
in the shadows its occupants
cast at midday.
Layer upon layer.
They must have lived forever
but under assumed names.
Among the travelers of every nation
passes the seed
of a fixed place.
Layer after layer
disclosed the same face.
I guess they've found traces
of where we walk at night. (51)

from Other Lives by Other Rivers
The past is water soluble
The figure is an atmospheric condition
You couldn't paint it if you tried
I dreamt myself to death last time
The window opened
like a fist into a palm (59)

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This quiet and sophisticated collection won the National Poetry Series award in 1988. Non-narrative, short poems with surprising poetic leaps and turns. Excellent illustration of deep-imagery.

[Matt Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a surrealist fanboy, I appreciate the bizarre imagery that courses through this volume like "The forest on its long walk / into landscape" ("Grays and Greens"). Indeed, I prefer odd images such as "holding your eyes / in your hands like addresses" ("No Worry") that border on nonsensical to the borderline cliche of "a fine dust is falling / over everything" ("Face") or the near triteness of such lines as "love is not a transitive verb" ("Re"). Or vice versa. Too often awkward phrasing impairs the enjoyment of these poems; however, in their favor, they're short.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swensen strings together a line of logic that is based primarily on derangement. Starting with the sense of sight, and the seemingly arbitrary fact that we organize what we see into distinct objects, and blurring that sight so that what we see is not clear, Swensen forms a logic that she can then apply to such principles as history or experience. Using this logic, the poems are eventually able to lift out of a traditional grammar in order to make statements in a new way.