by Rochelle Ratner
3.14.The sun, the globe, the full moon, the tire, the mandala. It's a world of circles. She learned this in Colonel Clymie's geometry class, her sophomore year of high school, before she felt abandoned by the other students, outcast, weird. She quit school at fifteen. Now she reads of a fifteen year-old girl who can rattle off the first fifty digits, half of what her father can recite, and her father's proud of her. A man recites Pi, 1000 numbers at a time, into a tape recorder, then gives it high and low notes, the rhythms of a Mozart composition. A poet mixes in numbers with lines from Prufrock or The Raven. 3.1415. Just making it from today to tomorrow.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.