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Mailbox Monday #729

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Her Whole Bright Life by Courtney LeBlanc, which I purchased.

Her Whole Bright Life is a collection of poems that weave together the trauma and exhaustion of a life lived with disordered eating and the loss and grief of the death of the poet’s father. Love and hunger intertwine and become inseparable as the poet grapples to find, and listen, to both. With a distinct and feminist voice, this collection delves into a life now lived without a beloved parent, while trying to survive a pandemic and battling demons that have lived inside her for most of her life. With both fierceness and tenderness, we see a woman trying to find her place within her own body and within an ever-changing world. This collection of poems is both an elegy and an anthem – praising both those who’ve been lost and those who remain.

The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams, which I purchased.

The Poet who Loves Pythagoras is very funny at times, profound at others, and exceedingly well-done. Anyone who loves math or poetry or both will also love this book!

–Raima Larter, Author, Spiritual Insights from the New Science

In the aptly titled collection, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras, Fran Abrams gives us a surprising perspective: the poet and the mathematician. In the first poem “Pythagorean Theorem,” she writes, “Few things in life are certain,” but we are certain of her talent and craft. At this convergence of math and poetry, Abrams strives for precision and economy, which is often the case in mathematics. She questions what we know as true and pure and opens its relationship to equations and proof. Whether she is discussing trying to find “true love” or the shortest distance between A to B, Abrams wants us to consider life’s puzzles—remembering what can stabilize the chaos of the everyday. She asks us to consider Pythagoras and his theorems and trust them with our hearts.

–Jona Colson, Author, Said Through Glass and Co-president, Washington Writers’ Publishing House

Equal parts clever and vulnerable, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras wields the vocabulary of mathematics and science like a blade. Fran Abrams reveals a wry humor in poems such as “Solve My Life,” which makes available a series of calculations: “The number of siblings I have is equal to / the number ounces in a quarter pound…The number of children I have brought into the world / is the same as half the number of siblings I have…The number of pounds I have gained and lost and gained during my life / is higher than the highest speed recorded at a NASCAR race.” Parallel lines engage loneliness; a road trip becomes a matter of counting the miles, literally. Readers who prize the consideration of big questions, balanced against agile specificity of phrase, will delight in this quirky collection. To quote an Abrams title that playfully promises a commercial device to harvest extra minutes: “Save Time! Order Today!”

–Sandra Beasley, Author of Made to Explode

What did you receive?

Comments

  1. More poetry – with interesting takes – look good for you. Happy Reading!

  2. Poetry and math, sounds like a great combo! Enjoy