Publisher's Synopsis
Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. HISTORIES OF THE FUTURE PERFECT by Ellen Kombiyil is a book of poetry inspired by concepts in astrophysics. Canvassing across time and space to provide a luminescence unafraid of the big ideas, the book itself has what Kombiyil calls a quantum structure. Here we find Galileo's thumbprint, Kurt Cobain Las Vegas, and Mary Lincoln communing with the dead. The poems themselves are never narrowly historical but rather cosmic in their inflections, taking on subatomic particles, DNA, and black holes, not simply as scientific props but as the very impetus for lyric motion. The book is published by The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, a mentorship model literary press, specializing in first and second books by authors with a connection to India/Indian diaspora.
HISTORIES OF THE FUTURE PERFECT is a shimmering book, both delicate and bold. This is a poet who can toggle between bikinis and trilobites, between astrophysics and pop culture, between elegy and premonition. 'Let sprinklers equal X, an absence that is manifest. / Now solve for bare feet glisten. Now step on constellations.' This is a poetry of rigorous, ingenious, warmhearted exploration.--Maureen N. McLane
Innovative, ecstatic, and emotionally potent, these poems shimmer with their skill and acumen...it's been a long time since I've been as excited about a new book as I am about this one.--Ravi Shankar
