Word Problems

Excerpts to be placed it notable literary journals and blogs. Online and in person readings with the author and translator. Interviews with the author for literary media and on the Coach House website. Co-op available. Print and digital galleys available. Galleys available at Winter Institute and ALA Midwinter Meeting. Online/social media campaign. eBook available at same time as print publication. eBook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed.

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.