Null Set

by Ted Mathys

Null Set collects the slightly obsessive possibilities that rise when we give them the space—odd jobs, trouble-making, and farm boy rambling, all in dialogue with mathematics, or William Faulkner, or other poets. From "Hypotenuse":
HYPOTENUSE
I write three, erase it, blow rubber
shavings from the desk. Write its notation,
erase it, blow shavings. Then three 3s erased, shavings blown, persist
for the nonce, three of nothing, nowhere
attending to discrete objects for counting, themselves objects at any rate. To kiss,
sleep, and focus we know to close
our eyes, imagine. I do, see nothing.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 2015

About the author

Ted Mathys is the author of four books of poetry including, most recently, Gold Cure (Coffee House Press, 2020). His honors include fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Poetry Society of America, and Saint Louis Regional Arts Commission. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lives in St. Louis, where he teaches at Saint Louis University and curates the 100 Boots Poetry Series at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ted Mathys' third book is interested in various kinds of precision in language, and those wonders of the world that seem only to disclose themselves in effortless verbal form: "The yellow block won't drop | through the rhombus slot | unless turned just || so, a collapse of three dimensions into two | her small fist lacks || the precision to propose." This is "Polyhedral's" reflection on the problem of that congruity of the verbal to the descriptive form, putatively a father's churlish patience with his infant daughter, but that ending is not completion is a lesson learned, in Null Set, again and again. Distinction is everything for Mathys. It's "All," his prose poem sequence on the distinctive concept of the maximum, falling away, "A motion light [that] reveals my position | in the backyard of what I've been | attempting to say." What resists this gifted intellect is the awareness that everything will need to have been said to have been endeavored better said.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book! It exemplifies Wallace Stevens' idea that a poem should make the visible a little hard to see. Mathys defamiliarizes the familiar and offers it back to us anew - from a baby playing with blocks to a set of double exposure photos. Vivid images and great sounds abound.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pleasant collection of poetry for folks of the math/science/logic nerdy persuasion. Nice read to be consumed in little bytes though it would be overwelming in Clobs. :P Could be an excellent discussion book for the right group.

[Taylor Napolsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed these complex poems, that seem to grow and mutate as the lines proceed, suggesting new shapes and depictions. I read this collection twice, to dig up every intimation I could. I liked it better the second time.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the All sequence very moving.