Catastrophe Theories

The poems in Catastrophe Theories reflect an increasingly unstable, surreal, and catastrophic world. Written over the past decade, the poems in Mari-Lou Rowley’s oracular work capture the zeitgeist of the moment. A world where human folly and frailty compete with corpocracy and technological determinism against the stubborn magnificence of the natural world.

Yet, these poems are neither prescriptive nor hopeless. Exploring the lives and concepts of mathematicians such as Euclid, Hypatia, Alan Turing, and René Thom, along with dream imagery and her love of science and nature, Rowley toys with perception, fractures reality into kaleidoscopic visions, then brings the reader back to small, everyday moments of truth or joy. As her speaker says, “Rejoice or regret. You decide.”

AUTHOR

Mari-Lou Rowley

Mari-Lou Rowley has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Suicide Psalms (Anvil Press), which was shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Book Award, and Transforium (JackPine Press) in collaboration with visual artist Tammy Lu. Her work has appeared internationally in literary, arts and science-related journals including the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics and Aesthetica Magazines Creative Works Competition anthology. She is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD at the University of Saskatchewan in new media, neuroplasticity and empathy.

Reviews

Advance praise: “These poems are immaculate knots and bone spurs of thought. Rowley is a master at cracking open language to reveal the luminosity of the quantum realm. Whether conjuring ghosts, the delicacy of numbers, dark desires or the magnitude of chaos, Rowley creates an aesthetic space where words linger like sparrow song on the day’s dust. This is a beautifully crafted and thoughtfully mapped journey to the lighthouse where Rowley reminds us that out of the hexagon, sweet honey flows.” – Lillian Necakov, author of il virus