Award-Winning Poet Brings Postmodern Style to Life in Mathematics of Love

Mathematics of Love is a poetry collection in the tradition of E. E. Cummings, Jose Garcia Villa and Dylan Thomas. Cowen embraces the postmodern craft of creating "sullen art." Villa helped Cowen build his poetic craft as his mentor and friend, and the residues of his influence can be clearly discerned.

"Concise, witty, subtle, these works move on the page with the ease of seasoned dancers on the stage. Cowen has a distinct taste for the lyrical, with a poetic lineage that includes Jose Garcia Villa, E. E. Cummings, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, and Emily Dickinson. And his language is as alive as it is exacting. The poems in Mathematics will leave you, as the poet declares in one, 'feeling / closely lobbied / by a / widened soul.' Amen!" -Luis H. Francia, author, Museum of Absences

"Like his mentor Jose Garcia Villa, John Edwin Cowen is a brave poet. He takes poetic risks with language and the result is often a beautiful flower behind the barbed wire of craftsmanship. I love the variety of poems in Mathematics of Love and the charged-up voice that powers all the work. He can be tender, challenging, energetic, and as complex musically as Villa and his other love, Dylan Thomas. I recommend this book to all those who care about poetry and who care about the human spirit." -Peter Thabit Jones, Swansea Poetry Magazine

John Edwin Cowen is the Parnasus Literary Journal's first prize winner in international competition. He has published poems widely in major literary magazines and is a former co-publisher of Bravo: The Poet's Magazine, founded in 1980 by the late poet, Jose Garcia Villa. He is editor of the Penguin Classics centennial volume: Doveglion: The Collected Poems of Jose Garcia Villa, published in 2008. Cowen is a Professor of Literacy and Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He earned his doctorate at Columbia University. Mathematics of Love: Poems by John Edwin Cowen is the poet's first published collection of poems.

(Soft Cover: $15, Hard Cover: $30, ISBNs: 978-1-937536-01-5/ 978-1-937536-08-4, LCCN: 2011939734, 6X9″, 134pp)

Anaphora Literary Press is an independent publisher that has published dozens of creative and non-fiction books. Among these publications is the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, a tri-annual journal, which has published best-selling authors like Cinda Williams Chima and Carrie Ryan. The press is a member of The Independent Book Publishers Association and The Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Anaphora authors have done readings at major venues. Several titles have been assigned in college classes, and reviewed in major academic, trade and news publications. The Press' Director, Anna Faktorovich, is an English professor.

To post a comment, you must register and login.