Author : Christopher Bursk
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822990741
Total Pages : 104 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)
Book Synopsis The Improbable Swervings of Atoms by : Christopher Bursk
Download or read book The Improbable Swervings of Atoms written by Christopher Bursk and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2005-08-04 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2004 Donald Hall Prize in PoetryThe Improbable Swervings of Atoms follows the comedic, often painful, physical and emotional travails of a young boy growing up in 1950s America. He watches the McCarthy hearings, conquers the Congo, assassinates the president, has his head stuffed into a toilet, drops his uniform on the fifty-yard line, and tries to make sense of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura. The poems engage history in a very intimate way, revealing how a boy, as he matures, attempts to understand the world around him, his own physical development, the people in his life, and what it means to live in a country and time where it is impossible to disengage oneself from world events—where, in fact, the quest for identity is an act that requires one to rewrite history in personal terms.