New Numbers (The New Issues Press Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Josie Kearns (Author)

Book Description

Series: The New Issues Press Poetry Series | Publication Date: March 2, 2000

These poems step forth with their eyes closed, trust that some soil will support their weight. Josie Kearns begins where language leaves off--this is not whimsical reinvention, but a strong case for extension that flowers from need. The poet finds both ease and struggle in the infinite; her lines push through their landscapes as if the air will both carry and resist them. This understanding of the nature of things makes Kearns' poetry so gently balanced, so willing to let life maneuver itself through the clutter. Her poems have a clairvoyant quality; she is one of the "messengers between worlds," the medium for what, until now, was nameless.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Josie Kearns brings a fresh sensibility and intelligence to contemporary poetry. New Numbers offers delightful insights into nothing less than the nature of What Is. The quality of imagination here is truly singular; the poems have a beautiful oddity and that is the rarest quality in poetry today. Fictional numbers with names like "leethum," "quaro," "sping," and "eenum" become metaphors for indeterminacy, the unknown, the last straw, apocalypse and excess. At once playful and wise, uncanny and toughminded, these poems will expand your sense of the world's harmonics." -- Alice Fulton

"Ms. Kearns delivers, in New Numbers, the precise and redemptive math of language. Against the disorderly figures of life as we know it, these poems tender a parallel universe--well reckoned, finely tuned, told truly--of incalculable gifts." -- Thomas Lynch

About the Author

The poems of Josie Kearns have appeared in The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Passages North, and have been widely anthologized elsewhere. Her first book, Life After the Line (nonfiction), was published by Wayne State University Press. She has been awarded grants from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Cowden Fellowship, three Hopwood Awards from the Jules and Avery Hopwood Foundation, and the first MacLeod-Grobe Prize from Poetry Northwest. She has been a soda jerk, reporter, factory worker, and grants writer, and currently teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: New Issues Pr; 1st edition (March 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932826938
• ISBN-13: 978-0932826930
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,580,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Infinitely Absorbing, May 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: New Numbers (The New Issues Press Poetry Series) (Paperback)

What Josie Kearns has set out to do here--to conjure a set of original gauges to measure what cannot be contained--is ambitious enough to make her success all the more remarkable. Those of us lacking mathematical skills will surely do well in Kearns' numerical realm. Every poem hits the mark in its originality, its surprises, its challenges and confirmations. There's humor here too, and despite the book's difficult task of making this crazy world "add up," a healthy dose of hope.