From Ian Williams, author of Reproduction, winner of the Giller
Prize and a June 2020 Indie Next Great Read
Frustrated by how tough the issues of our time are to solve - racial
inequality, our pernicious depression, the troubled relationships we
have with other people - Ian Williams revisits the seemingly simple
questions of grade school for inspiration: if Billy has five nickels and
Jane has three dimes, how many Black men will be murdered by police? He
finds no satisfaction, realizing that maybe there are no easy answers to
ineffable questions.
Williams uses his characteristic inventiveness to find not just new
answers but new questions, reconsidering what poetry can be, using math
and grammar lessons to shape poems that invite us to participate. Two
long poems cut through the text like vibrating basenotes, curiosities
circle endlessly, and microaggressions spin into lyric. And all done
with a light touch and a joyful sense of humour.