HELLO! WELCOME TO MY WEBSITE!
I’m Marion, short for Marion Deutsche Cohen. I’ve been a poet/writer for something like 45 years, and a mathematician and math lover for more than that. My “training” in math has been the expected — colleges, degrees, and so on. But my training in writing has been the opposite; I’m pretty much self taught. I ‘ve taken no more writing courses than anybody else with an undergraduate degree, and no more than were required. Both ways of learning have been helpful to me.
Another difference in the roles that math and writing have played in my life and work: Math is my MAIN passion. BUT I PUBLISH more writings (many, though, about math…).
You can find info about my books and other exciting-to-me things, on the various pages of this site; in particular, check out “Essays”. Also, CHECK JUST UNDER THIS “GREETING” FOR UP-TO-DATE INFO, like the three new books this academic year, including two released during the same week! But just to get us acquainted, here’s a summary, what I usually use as a “Short Author Bio” for readings, presentations, and publications:
— Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 29 collections of poetry or memoir; her latest poetry collections are “The Project of Being Alive” (New Plains Press, AL) and “ “New Heights in Non-Structure” (dancing girl press, IL)., as well as the just-released “The Discontinuity at the Waistline: My #MeToo Poems” (Rhythm and Bones Press, PA) and “The Fuss and the Fury” (Alien Buddha Press, NM). She is also the author of two controversial memoirs about spousal chronic illness, a trilogy diary of late-pregnancy loss, and “Crossing the Equal Sign”, about the experience of and her passion for mathematics. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Arcadia and at Drexel Universities. Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, and five grands.
— Currently, I’ve just finished teaching “Societal Issues on the College Campus” at Drexel’s Honors College; I’ve dreamed for years of teaching this course that I developed. And I’m also the author of something like ten UNpublished books and chapbooks, for which I spend a good part of my writing life working on finding publishers. One of my big wishes is to find one to whom I can simply send my manuscripts, as I write them (even when I write three or four book-length manuscripts a year…). (I think of myself as a poet/writer who’s “made it” but not made it BIG, and as such I don’t expect to find an agent.)
My so-far unpublished books are:
“Lessons from The Back Pain Book”, written from personal experience
“Harmonizing: In Memory of a Wonderful Friendship”; the “wonderful friendship” was with my singing partner at the time, before she developed dementia that precluded such friendship; we used to sing opera joyfully (I also played the piano accompaniment.)
“Negative Aspects”, which is a sort of sequel to “New Heights in Non-Structure” (dancing girl press); both are about ways of relating to children and to one another, and include a heavy recommendation for home-schooling
“The Essence of Seventh Grade: A Sort of Autobiography”, which is about lots of things, not only me. To give some idea, the three sections of that future book are titled “Don’t”, “Not a Good Fit”, and “Shameless Self-Promotion”.
“Disturbing Shapes”, one of my rare books that are (apparently) unthemed
“Paralyzed Objects”, ditto
“Recipe for Reality”, ditto-ditto
“Stories I Like to Tell” (and at least one story that I DON’T like to tell…)
“Piano”, probably self-explanatory
— I might have forgotten some at the moment! But I’ve been pleased that most of what I consider my important books – politically as well as personally – are in print (if not in bookstores or reviewed by The New York Times…). Whenever something happens to me – in particular late pregnancy loss (latEST pregnancy loss…), spousal chronic illness, and math (yes, math) – I seem to write several books about it! That’s not bragging; writers, writing styles, and writing M.O.’s vary among writers. I believe that a writer’s repertoire is what it is, and part of her statement(s) as a writer and person.
— I’ve also been pleased that my life, for the past 16 ½ years has been quite happy. With as many children as I’d hope to have (4, living) and as many husbands (1), and having connected with the world in important-to-me ways, I’m happy and satisfied.
— Anyway, all that said, I’m glad to meet you! I hope that Google will help those of you who feel a connection to find me! Meaning, I hope I WILL meet you! So if you have anything to share about anything on this site, please write me through the “Contact” page of this site. I will be happy to hear from you! (Now, don’t forget to check directly below!)
My 35th book just came out, from Alien Buddha Press (the 5th book of mine that they’ve published!). The title is “A Lady of 80”, since it consists of poems written during my year before turning 80, as well as the first few months after I turned 80. Part I of the book is titled, “Passions and Accomplishments”. “Passions” includes math, classical piano, Scrabble, babies, writing and presenting at readings and conferences, thrift-shopping (and thrift-store fashion), some political poems about what is currently four days before the 2024 presidential election (including a poem about reconciling my outrage at the Supreme Court’s 2022 anti-abortion decrees and my own passions for having and nurturing babies (and children). (There’s also a long-ish poem titled “Miscellaneous Sex Memories”, which I hope my children don’t read, and which YOU’re welcome to read.)
Here’s a math-poem from Part I:
This Math Problem
I do not have to know whether there’s a God.
I do not have to know whether there’s a self.
But by George, I have to know
about these lines.
What way should they aim?
Or should they spin?
Where must they go?
What must they do?
Things do not have to be symmetric.
But things have got to be transitive.
Lines have got
to get you there.
And things have got
to be reflex.
Points have go
to get you here.
Part II of the book is titled “Senior Philosopher” — as opposed to the “Junior Philosopher” that I claimed to be as a young adolescent (ages 11 to 12 or 13). In that section I tackle “imposter syndrome” (and why I don’t have it), full time jobs, fond memories of ex’s, and aspects of Buddhism. There’s also a prose piece titled “My Grandson Transitions”.
There’s then the perhaps predictable Part IV, “Milestone Birthday”, in which I declare that I “deserve 80”, and get a “Real-life Marion-Appreciation Party”, courtesy of my daughter Marielle. (I also get “The One-week Post-Party Blues”.)
And the final Part IV, “Growing Old Together”, is… well, I’m lucky that I (still?) have someone to grow old WITH. And I’ll end this book description with the last poem in the book, also titled “Growing Old Together”:
There a kind of love, maybe just compassion, that we feel for old people, ANY old person. And when the we is the significant other of the old person, it IS love. It’s love added to the regular compassion I just mentioned. Also love added to the love we felt before.
Being an old person whose significant other is slightly older, and slightly less healthy, than me, I feel that new, doubled love. And I take care of him. When we walk together, I’m always on the lookout for steps for him to rest on. And when we take buses together, on the lookout for the ones that involve the least walking.
But I’m not a caregiver. I was a caregiver for my first husband. 16 years of paralysis from M.S., six of them not in a nursing home. That was caregiving, 24/7, of a ridiculous order.
This is not that. Besides, he takes care of me, too. Assuages my computer woes. Makes us breakfast every Saturday, that’s our tradition, and he knows how much I hate, after dinner, putting away the leftovers so even when it’s my turn to do dishes, he does the putting away. He’s also the photographer in the family, and the plumber-caller.
Yes, this is regular “growing old together”. When you grow old together, there’s a love you feel that you didn’t feel before you were old. And I like it.
Stamp Collecting
The other kids went for commemoratives, first-day covers, cancellation errors
and they divided their albums according to country and decade.
But my sister and I marked our sections birds, trees, dogs, trains.
My specialty was children, two pages of children.
The purple boy in a cloak surrounded, all eight sides, by perky little sparrows
the red girl in kerchief and flowy dress talking to two perpendicular peacocks.
And the blue one, a circle of children, singing children, dancing children under and around a wiry smiley sun.
The neighborhood came at us with page upon page of dark-green masculine heads
brown government buildings
offices
large tables
machines
shields.
We’d look away, would never trade
had no desire to own those dull little rectangles
newspaper scraps
encyclopedia illustrations
miniature, withered dollar bills.
End
They say we begin with answers and end with questions
but mathematicians begin with questions and end with the same questions.
Are formulas coincidences?
Are proofs coincidences?
Especially when the proof is long. Long proofs are suspicious.
A proof should be one step. A thing happens for only one reason.
Are algebraic identities coincidences?
When something cancels out, is that a coincidence?
What exactly are the questions?
We begin with questions and end with nothing.
Just a bunch of theorems. Just a bunch of proofs.
book flyer attached — including two sample poems and book description
NEWEST BOOK!!! THE FUSS AND THE FURY
My 29th book, The Fuss and the Fury, was released (the same week as my 28th book! meaning July 2019), by Alien Buddha Press, NM. The flyer with all the goodies including sample poem and ordering info, appears directly below:
My 28th book was released July 19, 2019 — “The Discontinuity at the Waistline: My #MeToo Poems” — by Rhythm and Bones Press, PA. The book flyer appears directly below — but first, something about the cover image: Done by my son Devin Asher Cohen, the drawing is of Gurgie, one of my thrift store finds several decades ago when Devin was a child, and the cutest stuffed animal in the world — or so think Devin and I, and the publishers! We chose Gurgie for the cover as a symbol of sweetness and gentleness, which is one of the messages of the book. And now for the flyer!
NEW BOOK! The Project of Being Alive
My 27th book, “The Project of Being Alive”, was released in Nov. 2018 by New Plains Press, AL. Directly below is the book’s flyer, which contains cover image, blurbs, sample poem, author bio, and ordering info.
