Easy Math
Will be published approx. on 4. April 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
64 pages
978-1-936747-48-1 (ISBN)
Description
Selected by Marie Howe for the 2011 Kathryn A. Morton Prize, Easy Math is anxious and exuberant both. Lauren Shapiro's poems are Aesop stood on end, wry fables that defy our instinct to find a moral to the story. Instead, she offers us a gimlet eye to the disappointments of the world, tall tale-telling by turns rickety, defiant, and brave. ?There are an infinite number of ways to torture the soul with hopefulness" Shapiro says, so we settle for ways to survive?crooked grins, twisted logic, and equations of jello shots, amusement parks, and post-it notes that never add up. ?Everyone has something to say / about love and impermanence and waste." She says it better than most.
"Shapiro specializes in snappy, poignant retorts to the problems of pop culture. Joan Rivers, Lindsay Lohan, and even the wily Jersey Shore crew inhabit her crackling new volume of poems, winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry.... Shapiro guides readers into uncomfortable but evocative settings, from a surreal ESL classroom and plague-ridden Marseilles to a hotel workout room. Imagination does not just take flight here; it rides the airport shuttle bus and connects travelers from different continents."
--Booklist
"Lauren Shapiro can downshift from the sublime to the profane and back again in less than five seconds. Energy and joy create these metaphors, and if they are in discourse with postmodern malaise, they almost win the argument."
?Marie Howe
"Shapiro specializes in snappy, poignant retorts to the problems of pop culture. Joan Rivers, Lindsay Lohan, and even the wily Jersey Shore crew inhabit her crackling new volume of poems, winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry.... Shapiro guides readers into uncomfortable but evocative settings, from a surreal ESL classroom and plague-ridden Marseilles to a hotel workout room. Imagination does not just take flight here; it rides the airport shuttle bus and connects travelers from different continents."
--Booklist
"Lauren Shapiro can downshift from the sublime to the profane and back again in less than five seconds. Energy and joy create these metaphors, and if they are in discourse with postmodern malaise, they almost win the argument."
?Marie Howe
Reviews / Votes
?Lauren Shapiro writes a smart, funny, richly inhabited poetry of the here and now. May it soon be everywhere and always."?James Tate
"Full of vim and vinegar, these poems push our faces into their marvelous bouquets. Constantly refreshed with alarming strangeness, Easy Math veers between irked humor and world-weary awe. Remember when we all got out of school for the fire alarm? This is even better."
?Dean Young
"Lauren Shapiro can downshift from the sublime to the profane and back again in less than five seconds. Energy and joy create these metaphors, and if they are in discourse with postmodern malaise, they almost win the argument."
?Marie Howe
?This fearless poet isn't afraid to name something beautiful. And she's not shy about how we humans have thoughts, opinions and feelings; she brings an astonishingly acute precision to bear on so many of our less than perfect ways. She registers our misapprehensions and turns our imaginations up several registers. I love reading this book, and getting to know this poet."
?Dara Wier "Lauren Shapiro writes a smart, funny, richly inhabited poetry of the here and now. May it soon be everywhere and always."
-James Tate
"Full of vim and vinegar, these poems push our faces into their marvelous bouquets. Constantly refreshed with alarming strangeness, Easy Math veers between irked humor and world-weary awe. Remember when we all got out of school for the fire alarm? This is even better."
-Dean Young
"Lauren Shapiro can downshift from the sublime to the profane and back again in less than five seconds. Energy and joy create these metaphors, and if they are in discourse with postmodern malaise, they almost win the argument."
-Marie Howe
"This fearless poet isn't afraid to name something beautiful. And she's not shy about how we humans have thoughts, opinions and feelings; she brings an astonishingly acute precision to bear on so many of our less than perfect ways. She registers our misapprehensions and turns our imaginations up several registers. I love reading this book, and getting to know this poet."
-Dara Wier
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Louisville
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
145 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-936747-48-1 (9781936747481)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Lauren Shapiro received a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brown University and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a former associate acquiring editor at the Yale University Press and has translated poetry from Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, and Arabic into English. Her poems have been published in such journals as "Pool, Passages North, 32 Poems, Forklift, Ohio, Drunken Boat, notnostrums," and "Thermos." She is a curator of the Monsters of Poetry Reading Series and an assistant editor at Rescue Press. She lives and teaches in Madison, Wisconsin.
Content
The Conversation
Botanical Garden
ESL Students
Bent Syllogism
What To Do
Canis Soupis
A Day in the Life
Rule Book
Chorus
They Promised Me a Thousand Years of Peace
I'll Never Understand It
The One Hundreds
History Lesson
The Life of Birds
Learning Curve
Hotel
Is There a Moral to the Story?
It Makes Philosophical Sense
A to Z
The Barbecue
Persona Poem
Please Support the Wisconsin Guinea Pig Rescue League
The Encounter
The Witness
Going to Hawaii
According to the Magazines, Lindsay Lohan is Very Lonely These Days
Endless Beginning
If You Are Lost, Don't Move
Photo Op
The Last Time I'll Ever Do That
Dominoes
A Strange Thing Happened on March 8th
The Machine
The Argument
First Man Gets the Oyster, Second Man Gets the Shell
Humanization Squared
The Confrontation
I've Always Wanted to Say This
Hallmark Aisle
Nothing Is More Beautiful When You Try to Make It That Way, Joan Rivers
After a Long Day
Retrospect
The Great Wide Open
The Ascent
How I Wrote a Belated Love Letter
A Tediously Slow Realization
The First Law of Thermodynamics
So Much Beauty From Despair
Botanical Garden
ESL Students
Bent Syllogism
What To Do
Canis Soupis
A Day in the Life
Rule Book
Chorus
They Promised Me a Thousand Years of Peace
I'll Never Understand It
The One Hundreds
History Lesson
The Life of Birds
Learning Curve
Hotel
Is There a Moral to the Story?
It Makes Philosophical Sense
A to Z
The Barbecue
Persona Poem
Please Support the Wisconsin Guinea Pig Rescue League
The Encounter
The Witness
Going to Hawaii
According to the Magazines, Lindsay Lohan is Very Lonely These Days
Endless Beginning
If You Are Lost, Don't Move
Photo Op
The Last Time I'll Ever Do That
Dominoes
A Strange Thing Happened on March 8th
The Machine
The Argument
First Man Gets the Oyster, Second Man Gets the Shell
Humanization Squared
The Confrontation
I've Always Wanted to Say This
Hallmark Aisle
Nothing Is More Beautiful When You Try to Make It That Way, Joan Rivers
After a Long Day
Retrospect
The Great Wide Open
The Ascent
How I Wrote a Belated Love Letter
A Tediously Slow Realization
The First Law of Thermodynamics
So Much Beauty From Despair