Britt Kaufmann, Author
Burnsville writer Britt Kaufmann found inspiration for her debut book of poetry in an unlikely place—calculus class. “Of all the ridiculous things, ‘take calculus’ has always been on my bucket list,” she says. “All through college, it didn’t fit in my schedule, so I let it go. But as one navigates midlife, I realized my abilities to tackle new, difficult subjects was waning, and since I’d just been working as a math tutor for the last four years, it was ‘now or never.’”
A former English teacher as well as a writer, Kaufmann was able to blend her areas of interest in an explorative way. “As a tutor, I was surrounded by math all day, so everything became filtered through a math-language lens,” she says. “Also, I’ve always been drawn to the layers of meaning in a single word, so was delighted to discover new ways to play with words.”
The book embraces the theme of change in her life and observations of others, including approaching her empty-nest years and watching students in high school navigate transitions in their lives. “One of the things I wanted the poems in Midlife Calculus to do was to bear witness to the struggles both high school teachers and students have endured the last few years through the pandemic and the shifting educational landscape,” Kaufmann says. “Math teachers, especially, will relate to the poems. I worked so that the poems would have some meaning for everyone, but if you were also a ‘math person’ there would be extra Easter eggs.”
Midlife Calculus, September 2024, poetry, paperback, $17.95, by Britt Kaufmann, and published by Press 53, Winston-Salem, NC. Learn more at BrittKaufmann.com.
