Sensual Math |  | Author: Fulton Alice
Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.
List Price: $19.95
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 715898
Media: Paperback
Pages: 128
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.4
ISBN: 0393314456
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780393314458
ASIN: 0393314456
Publication Date: April 1, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A profound and perceptive fourth collection of poetry explores the themes of science, popular culture, feminism, gender roles, stereotypes, and social institutions. Reprint.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Fantastic. October 14, 2009
Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
Alice Fulton, Sensual Math (Norton, 1995)
I'm not entirely sure what to say about Sensual Math. Sometimes you find yourself so wrapped up in a book that you end up with nothing at all in your head; the contents have washed everything else away. The book's twelve standalone poems and two sequences hit pretty much every high note there is to hit.
"I'm faking Lamaze and ancient mantras. I'm having
new veneers. The dentist talks about a relative
who boasted over 364 girlfriends
and seduction rooms in every shade.
He was in air conditioning
and smoked himself to death
though he could hold his breath
longer than anyone else.
'My role model,' he says."
("Fuzzy Feelings")
The sequences are the kinds of things you wonder why no one's ever come up with before, being a simple and awesome as they are. "My Last TV Campaign" gives us an ad exec who comes out of retirement in order to conceive a set of feel-good PSAs for his old company which no one ends up understanding, while "Give: A Sequence Reimagining Daphne and Apollo" gleefully mashes up Greek mythology and postmodern culture, casting Apollo as Fat Elvis (essentially) and Daphne as a mix of role models, from Marianne Moore to Amelia Earhart. It all works wonderfully, which should be no surprise to Alice Fulton fans (of whom there should be scads more than there are):
"...Apollo ate nothing but pasta
with a dab of porpoise sauce. He despised Cupid for dressing in a blouse
slashed to the waist and a tiny gold-lined cape from Nudie's Rodeo Tailors.
For the mixed metaphor of his jumpsuit that flared to wedding bells white
as a pitcher plant's. Apollo was still exulting over
his recent easy
listening hit when he happened on Cupid's opening at the Vegas Hilton.
'What right hast thou to sing "My Way," thou imbecilic Fanny Farmer midge larva,
thou sewer-water-spitting gargoyle, rednecked bladderwort, dirtbag, greasedome
and alleged immortal of a boy,' Apollo fumed..."
("Mail")
Subtle, sexy, and always in control of itself, Sensual Math is one not to be missed. Find yourself a copy pronto. **** ½
 A great read: Yes. Dickinson: No. February 28, 2006
T. Combs (Anchorage, AK United States)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The title to my review pretty much sums it up. Fulton is a great writer and Sensual Math is definitely worth reading (more than once.) But comparing her to Emily Dickinson is a little outrageous. As poet Li-Young Lee once observed about Emily Dickinson, "you could spend a life time unpacking the meaning from her poems." Fulton is good, but she isn't THAT good!
Poem Envy July 29, 2004
Barry Shiner (Los Angeles, CA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I read this book after I looked at a list by Matthew Boroson, "humbly amazed." It's a great list, a course in wonder, as he calls it. Of the contemporary poets he recommends, Alice Fulton is the most fearless, and for my money, the best. Who else would begin a poem: "Is beige a castrate of copper, pink, and taste?" ("Fuzzy Feelings") She's wild, but her work is not obscure. Gender-bending, Elvis (!), lace, particle physics... it's all here folks, and never said more richly. I guess the highest praise I can offer is to say that I wish I'd written this book. Yup, I have poem envy. I highly recommend this book.
Publishers Weekly should be ashamed of itself November 1, 2003
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Fulton is not Dickinson; the comparison is spurious, and a detriment, finally, to Fulton's talent. This is an interesting collection, but, I think, one not able to sustain the hyperbolic praise that is has garnered. Still, it is worth a close read.
Maybe I'm not qualified, but I'll still speak my peace August 6, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Let's preface this review with an explanation -- I'm not an intellectual, and if it wasn't for my perverse sense of humor mixed with my young ambition to take as many courses in mathematics as possible, I would probably never have picked this book up off of a friend of mine's shelf.That being said, I did pick it up. I opened it, and I had to read the first poem three or four times to make sure it was really as good as I thought. Then I moved on to the next, and the next. Long story short, I bugged the book's owner so much, now the book is mine. I have been thouroughly impressed with each successive poem. Since this (poetry) is not my usual thing, I lack the vocabulary to adequately describe this book. It appealled to me, a (then) computer science and anthropology double major, and it appealed to my friend, who got his doctorate in literature. Bottom line: No matter who you are, buy this book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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