The Geometry of Departure, Jason M. Marak's debut collection of fourteen-line poems, artwork, and associated one-hundred-word stories, charts a lyric journey interspersed with narrative glimpses of hard-luck couple Jimmy and Delta. From New York City's traffic-clogged arteries and unforgiving Midwestern plains, to West Coast redwood groves and wind-battered coastlines, their journeys are juxtaposed with another recurring couple, Thicket and Tree. Whether rooted in or moving through these disparate American landscapes, the characters navigate the magical and mundane searching for intersections, connections, proof, angles, and better angels while managing consequences of contact and separation with people, places, and the past. Marak's visual art reveals his literary creative process, integrating the scrawled notes and observations that become each connected story.
