Malilenas is a series of 47 numbered poems with various links and doublings played out in a space of shiftingly intimate rhetorical turns. The collection reflects Kalleberg’s interest in moving toward “a kind of string theory of the poem,” which “always seems to leave a remainder.”

"Numbers slide promiscuously around in these poems, emboldening the fundamental ways in which we have relations with counting (accounting for): bodies, monies, words, selves. Kalleberg's work embodies a science of many, and the indivisible hangs out in it, too, as fabulous, energetic, funny and full of pathos as César Vallejo, hitting us in our pecuniary pocket, if the wallet were a thing we wore on our hearts."

—Eleni Sikelianos

Garrett Kalleberg’s previous volumes of poetry include Some Mantic Daemons (Futurepoem, 2002), Psychological Corporations (Spuyten Duyvil, 2002), and Limbic Odes (Heart Hammer, 1997). His poetry, reviews, and translations have appeared in various journals, including Brooklyn Rail, The Canary, Crowd, Eleven Eleven, Damn the Caesars, Tragaluz (Mexico), Fence, Sulfur, First Intensity, Denver Quarterly, A.bacus, Aufgabe, Mandorla, and American Letters & Commentary, and in An Anthology of New (American) Poets (Talisman House, 1998). Garrett’s theatrical work The Situation Room was produced by Brooklyn Drama Club for Collective Unconscious, New York, 2002, and The Fringe Festival, New York, 2003. From 1998 to 2002, Garrett edited The Transcendental Friend and the Immanent Audio label. His awards for poetry and critical writing include a grant from Poets & Writers, two awards from the Academy of American Poets, and two grants from The Fund for Poetry. Garrett holds a BFA from Cooper Union, and an MA in Creative Writing from City College.

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[excerpts]

4.
Something feeds me zeros until
all my energy is consumed
in error correction.
I find myself
on a path I did not ask for
along an arc I cannot prevent.
I cannot prevent arcs.
I cannot prevent paths
in the form of mathematical certainty
or probability.
Something feeds me,
and all my riches are immaterial. No matter
what I have done, or do, or will do,
probability will save me.

27.
Destitute of worth, having no value.
Destitute of words, having no significance.
Though I meant what I said and
wrote and, writing off
the wreck and the reckoner
cash out in the everyday.
What a beautiful accident! Can I say that?
That’s life, she said.
Capitalize on past mistakes and still you
need a good business sense.
A calculated risk, a cultivated loss—
form a bond with abandon
all you bonds, form
and be content. For whom
and how many
and how many times you begin again
depends on how many times you end.