JMW: What’s most exciting about this book to you?
BK: The most exciting about this book is that it has a spine. It's so important to have a spine. Additionally, I consider myself very lucky to get a collection of math-related poems published by a house that deals primarily poetry. It's not easy to find literary editors who also appreciate math.
JMW: Do you see it as a new departure for you, a continuation of earlier work/themes, or some combination?
BK: In many ways, this collection is a departure because it is focused on a narrow aspect of my life: working as a high school math tutor and taking calculus for the first time. Yet, there is always the search for meaning and purpose that seems to weave itself into my work. My family also factors in, though hopefully in ways that don't feel intrusive.
JMW: At this point in your career, do you see your work as “Mennonite,” and how or how not? (We know this is a ridiculously broad and fraught question, so feel free to respond in whatever way seems right to you.)
BK: I grew up Mennonite, attended a Mennonite high school and college... so those values are so deeply embedded in me that it would be silly to pretend otherwise. Do I feel like I write intentionally to reflect Mennonite values, religious beliefs or culture? Not particularly. But having lived among Southern Baptists in Appalachia for the last twenty years, I am certainly very aware my voice and experiences are different. Certain poems in Midlife Calculus certainly make a nod to my religious upbringing, too.
JMW: What themes, issues, techniques, and/or other authors were most in your mind as this project came into being?
BK: What was so different for me as this collection came together was how much I protected myself. The poems often began in class, jotted among the notes and practice problems. I'd get fixated on a word or turn of phrase or pun and start playing around with it. The process was joyful or playful. As the poems kept coming, I suspected that I might be on to something, but I left them alone, hiding in a variety of math notebooks. It wasn't until I knew I had quite a few that I went back, found them all, transcribed them into their own notebook, and began editing them. Even then, I didn't submit any to individual journals or magazines, until I was submitting the whole collection, too. Submitting means rejection and I knew, once I started getting the rejections, it would derail my momentum. So I was very protective of my creation and play. Once I started submitting, I already had "completed" the challenge I'd always wanted to do: write a full-length collection of poetry. That sense of completion bolstered me against the inevitable form rejections. I knew it wasn't going to be easy getting math poems past literary editors.
JMW: Is there a brief excerpt, or a poem if this is a book of poems, that we can reprint as part of this interview?
BK: A good poem to include might be:
Teaching on a Full Moon Friday
I don all my talismans:
a silver ring from my daughter,
a pendant of pressed flowers about my neck.
I shrug into a sweater
my grandmother knit my father,
inhale a cloud called rosemary and mint,
intone the spell of my mother's church:
Peace before me,
Peace behind me,
Peace under my feet...
A bell to begin and end my meditation.
JMW: Are there links to reviews or other interviews, your book’s or publisher’s website, or your website, that we should include?
BK: Links:
My website: https://www.brittkaufmann.com/
My press's page for me and ordering: https://www.press53.com/britt-kaufmann
instagram, threads: @brittwriter
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558466774982
Here's a blog I wrote for MAA about my job as a tutor: https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/unexpected-results-when-your-math-tutor-is-a-poet