The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi [Paperback]

An original collection from one of the most active poets in contemporary literature.

The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Piis a poem-novel about the relationship between a pirate and a parrot who, after capturing a certain quantity of prizes, are shipwrecked on a deserted island, where they proceed to discuss whether they would have been able to communicate with people indigenous to the island, had there been any. Characterized by multilingual punning, humor puerile and set-theoretical, philosophical irony and narrative handicaps, Eugene Ostashevsky’s new large-scale project draws on sources as various as early modern texts about pirates and animal intelligence, old-school hip-hop, and game theory to pursue the themes of emigration, incomprehension, untranslatability, and the otherness of others.“This isn’t just a book: It is a multi-vocal orchestra. It performs some of the most playful, surprising, and innovative musical effects of our day. Yet at the center of all this play there is the large emptiness of loss. Loss, the mother of metaphysics.”
–Ilya Kaminsky

In this collection language is examined and experienced as a source of bafflement, tragedy, and pleasure. The poems are deftly woven from a variety of languages, traditions, and texts. Ostashevsky, whose first language is Russian, spins his song from the displacements and discoveries of his own voyages for our reading pleasure...Despite being buffeted by storm and shipwreck and existential questions, our pirate and parrot never lose their balance. Neither does Ostashevsky in this hilarious, deeply serious, collection. —Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.,Hyperallergic

Like Wallace Stevens,mutatis mutandis, Ostashevsky inspires us to find pleasure, if not a firm foothold, in the shifting sands of mere being. —Boris Dralyuk,Los Angeles Review of BooksBlog

Language of every kind is at the heart lóˇ