The Law of Truly Large Numbers

Poems

James Kimbrell is an American master. His poems are perfectly balanced, giving us just enough moments of laughter to keep us from crying—as Shakespeare might’ve observed, ‘He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.’ Kimbrell rides the line between this world and the next at one hundred miles per hour in a ’72 Dodge Duster—reminding the reader, in order to keep up, ‘You need to keep the camera moving at the same speed.’ Kimbrell shakes us into a new perspective where we look up from the book at a giant mirror in the sky and ‘gain the illusion of spaciousness.’

Travis Mossotti, author of Apocryphal Genesis

The Law of Truly Large Numbers is a book about coming to terms with loss and the arrival of unexpected, perhaps undeserved, love. Based on the statistical principle that in a truly large sample set anything outrageous is likely to happen, this book explores not only the outrageous things that have already happened—the loss of siblings and parents; the loss of home, friends, and relatives; the weight of illness and physical aging—but also the discovery and rediscovery of friendship as well as romantic and familial connections. Often locating themselves where mourning and celebration, grief and humor intersect, these poems consider the sometimes unexpected ways in which grief might open new channels for understanding and, ultimately, for love.

More Praise

James Kimbrell’s The Law of Truly Large Numbers is that rare collection of poems that delivers not just narrative but the transformations only lyric poetry can provide. Over and over, Kimbrell transforms the quotidian into the valuable. Whether it be a bowl made from a tree in the yard, or the ways in which love grows from the heart that has been rendered cold, these moving poems of memory and recollection will surprise and captivate you. Here we have one of our best poets writing some of his best work.

C. Dale Young, author of Prometeo

James Kimbrell’s new poems defy categorization. His tone is his own, his ear pitch perfect. His genius is to concentrate such a granular attention that each poem embodies a new, unpredicted discovery. Above all, he writes with unbridled intimacy and wit, of people, places, and things that he loves. The Law of Truly Large Numbers is the work of a contemporary master.

Rodney Jones, author of Alabama

96 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

January, 2025

isbn : 9780822967378

Series

Pitt Poetry Series

Subjects

Poetry / General

about the author

James Kimbrell is the author of Smote, The Gatehouse Heaven, and My Psychic and the cotranslator of Three Poets of Modern Korea: Yi Sang, Hahm Dong-Seon, and Choi Young-Mi. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, the Discovery/The Nation Prize, a Whiting Award, the John and Renee Grisham Fellowship, the Florida Book Award, the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry Magazine, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. A native of Mississippi, he now serves as distinguished research professor at Florida State University.

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