The Formulas

In Jordan Sanderson’s marvelous collectionThe Formulas you will be told where you are and where you will go, and just when you think you are sure, you will go somewhere new. You will worry, want, have, beg, learn, and fall. You’ll have injuries. You’ll crave. You’ll listen to The Flaming Lips and Adele. You will “do your part.” You will be both terrified and reassured at once but “a thousand breaths can’t compose you.” You will want to revisit these formulae again and again. You will “blow apart like a universe,” but “you will know you belong.” ~ Julie Johnson, Naming the Afternoon.

Entering Jordan Sanderson’s poetry, we find a world of strict requirements and generous rewards. Here are ultimate absurdities drawn from life, polymorphous enthrallments embedded in the everyday. From the first poem onwards, it is impossible to separate intrigue from recognition or apprehension from delight. ~ Angela Ball, author of Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds.