Research Catalog

Title

The improbable swervings of atoms / Christopher Bursk.

Author

Bursk, Christopher.

Publication

Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2005], ©2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

93 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

"The 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Pitt poetry series

Uniform Title

Pitt poetry series.

Note

• "Winner of the 2004 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry"--Cover.

Contents

Carnage : cataclysm : catastrophe -- Freedom train -- Army hearings -- One more victory for the children of light -- Dr. Livingstone, I presume -- My brother and I drop the bomb on Hiroshima -- Nothing more dangerous than boredom -- Woodcraft manual for boys -- Coffee -- Fourteen and under singles championship -- Sex education -- The barbarians -- De rerum natura, book five -- Irreconcilable differences -- One nation, indivisible, under God -- E pluribus unum -- You only get a few chances to be of interest to the gods -- What do you hate about yourself? -- That'll be the day -- Mutually assured destruction -- Why Latin should still be taught in high school -- Das Kapital -- November 29, 1963, Life magazine -- The Atomic Energy Act of 1962 -- New Year's resolution -- Plymouth Rock -- Totaled -- Soo-ling -- The world of business -- The great society -- 1964 -- January 19, 1972 -- Singing yourself down the stairs -- Why I hate math -- August 6 -- Politics ends when you unwrap a sandwich -- No verifiable proof -- College professor suspended -- The congressman from Bucks County answers a question -- Utopia -- Thanksgiving will never be the same -- The soul wants the last word -- Farewell ceremony -- 42 Linden -- De Rerum Natura.

ISBN

0822958899

OCLC

• ocm61330581
• SCSB-5216684

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries