The Ars Magna for the Manifold Dimensions of z

Daring and brilliant, Neil De La Flor's latest book, The Ars Magna for the Manifold Dimensions of z, is a big kick in the rear to absurdist theater. It stars a very tough Meta, a member of the Danish underground. "If my head had been cut off," says Meta, "you would've been next." The book explores "parallel worlds that are unaware of the other, but are layered on top of each other like minks or foxes wearing stoles and fur coats." Characters pursue each other through five acts, a series of emails and an epilogue invoking Minkowskian Spacetime - I won't go there but wow! De la Flor dives deep into meta-Meta-mind. --Terese Svoboda

In The Ars Magna for the Manifold Dimensions of z, Neil de la Flor gives us a braided history of the speaker and his beloved Meta. Through found (sometimes redacted text), memory, interviews and gorgeous speculation, de la Flor conjures a lovingly hybrid picture of Meta and the Danish Underground Resistance during the Holocaust. As the poet learns more about his heritage, we as readers learn more about American families and the pasts they carry, what our elders have taught us and what has (and perhaps always will) remain a mystery. --Denise Duhamel