In The Infinity Room the reader will find polished, precise poems that are built around the author’s experiences of touring Nevada’s atomic bomb test sites, the Chernobyl disaster site, and Oak Ridge, as well as living for decades near Three Mile Island. These iconic landmarks of the threat of nuclear technology become more than talking points as they provide grounding for narratives of faith and skepticism from multiple viewpoints that employ science, religion, history, myth, politics, and popular culture, including a piece about the author’s experience as a student at Kent State at the time of the National Guard shooting. The poems here are tightly controlled but electric, dark yet vibrant with love and longing, and packed with memorable characters and places that are presented through a singular, lyrical voice that connects us to what it means to be human.
ContentsDistraction Therapyi.The Perimeter MelodyFor GoodDuring the Retirement SemesterThe Earth, We're Told, Is HummingThe Malignancy of StarsThe Fury that Follows Small DisappointmentsThe Fear WarehouseShadowing the GravediggerAssessing the DeadScienceThe Shelter RevivalThe Infinity RoomThe Startling Language of Shriveling LeavesPreserving CursiveThe Lost ContinentsThe Secret Cityii.The AbsoluteAfter the Bomb Drill, Miss Hartung Teaches WeatherThe Nuclear AgeUpon the TongueWhile I Am StandingThe LightThe Rain aft er SunriseThe Secret VoiceA Blanket Was over Her BodyMerging, Slowing, the Second SunWorshipThe Sum TotalThe Lengthening Radius for Hate: A Sequenceiii.The Chernobyl SwallowsTurning Sixty-Five: How to Rid Your House of GhostsVisiting the Living Writers ClassThe HandsDreamtimeElegyAnniversaryAcknowledgments
