Abacus of Years: Poems

by Emily R. Grosholz

There are two topics that seem largely unexplored by American poets of our time. One is the deep attachment parents (and perhaps most especially working parents) form for their infants and how they perceive their children (perhaps as Blake saw them) with all the wisdom of their innocence. The second is the relationship of science, mathematics and metaphysics to our everyday life. Here is a book that explores, and to some degree attempts to define, the writer’s investigations in those two domains, one stemming from her experience as a mother, the other from her profession as a philosopher of science. And it is this juxtaposition of maternal emotion and detached, almost clinical, analysis that provides Grosholz’s wonderful new collection with such grace and such power.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Godine Publisher & Black Sparrow Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is no end to the kinds of poems that Grosholz can write, always with distinction of language and with a great gift for wedding the measures of verse to the rhythms of thought."
— Richard Wilbur

"Grosholz seems to keep a certain distance from her subjects and to manage this without the ironies one might expect. I take this to be a sign of the writer's intelligence; it is certainly a mark of this poet's admirable apartness from other poets of her time."
— Donald Justice

[Jonathan Koven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely collection picked up on my honeymoon. Poems focus on motherhood, the innate wisdom of children, science, metaphysics, and the mathematics constructing the universe. Great stuff.

[Daniel Campos · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems in this collection present fresh engagements with many of the themes in Grosholz's brilliant poetic work: family, children, love, eros, travel (England and France having a special place in this collection), art, mathematics, and philosophy. For lovers of letters and the classics, "In Praise of the Humanities" and "Ithaka II" are standout poems, masterpieces of intelligence, sensibility, and beauty. "Rivers" is also masterful - it transcends the worlds of nature and scientific ideas to reach for the divine.