“All numbers, like words, have their correspondence and therefore a meaning in accordance therewith; but there is this difference: That numbers involve general ideas and words particular ideas; and since one general idea involves countless particulars, numerical writing involves more mysteries than writing composed of letters.” — Emanuel Swedenborg (1757)
This work of numerical poetry from Richard Kostelanetz is an exercise in mathematical patterning and interval structures as much as it is a boundary-pushing collection of concrete poetry. Exhaustive Parallel Intervals is one example of the innovative, avant-garde literary work Kostelanetz has been practicing since the early ‘60s. Born in 1940 in New York City, Kostelanetz has been an unaffiliated writer and artist for the past thirty years. He has published many books of fiction, poetry, experimental prose, criticism, and cultural history.