Standard candles

Alice Major emigrated from Scotland at the age of eight, and grew up in Toronto before coming west to work as a weekly newspaper reporter. She served as the City of Edmonton’s first poet laureate from 2005–2007. A widely-published author, she has won many distinctions. Her most recent book, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, received the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for non-fiction as well as a National Magazine Award gold medal. Her website is www.alicemajor.com.

"Alice Major’s 10th poetry collection, Standard candles, covers a huge distance in its slim text, racing through a dozen different poetic forms and countless cosmologies. It references everything from Greek mythology to quantum uncertainty to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the inventor of the standard candle itself. The book is like an ultra-dense kernel containing all things—history, theology, astronomy, geometry, an infinite list. It’s the universe right before the Big Bang, titanic forces contained within a few thousand tightly packed words, almost ready to explode and race endlessly out." [Full review at http://bit.ly/1W6w7s5]

• xi Sonnet for Valentine’sThe set of all gods2 The god of prime numbers3 The god of infinities4 The god of symmetry5 The god of gravity6 The god of salt7 The god of kites and darts8 The god of quantum uncertainty9 The god of probabilities10 The baker god11 The god of automata12 The god of teapots14 The god of cats16 The god of sparrows17 The god of hearts18 The jeweller god19 The god of dark20 The god of memory21 The muse of universesOrdinary matter24 Ordinary matter26 Vacuum fluctuations27 The helium thoughts28 Advice to the lovelorn30 Three-body problem31 Love in three dimensions32 Heavy elements33 Local bubble34 CatechismStandard candles40 1 Address | 195942 2 Clouds of glory | 190845 3 Pythagorean theorem | 196546 4 Triangulation | 180849 5 The end of greatness | 200051 6 In the Castle of Stars | 157654 7 Supernova Type 1A | 199757 8 Then death returns59 9 In all that void60 10 Looking out to the dark | December 192862 11 d = (X- x)2 + (Y- y)2 + (Z- z)2 - c(T-t)2 | now64 A prayer to bring you homeMuscle of difficulty68 Muscle of difficulty70 Yet another crack in the foundation72 Day’s eye74 Expanding space76 The movers’ dilemma78 Rectangularization of the morbidity curve80 Now, that amphibious moment81 To the generations that will live a thousand years82 Last scattering surfaceLet us compare cosmologies86 1 Let us compare cosmologies87 2 The Orphic follower88 3 A pope89 4 The evangelist90 5 The philosophical skeptic91 6 The nihilist92 7 The totalitarian93 8 The survivalist94 9 The optimist95 10 The magician96 11 The baker97 12 The consumer98 13 The funeral director99 14 The Manichean100 15 The artistSins and virtues102 Avarice104 Lust105 Gluttony107 Envy108 Pride110 Anger111 Sloth113 Mercy115 HopeShifting wavelengths118 Tortoise and fern120 Fingers of God121 The barber’s paradox122 Zeno’s paradox123 Twin paradox124 Sand reckonings: Eubulides’ paradox125 Honeycomb conjectures127 Bee violet128 Optical molasses129 Life adapts to inhospitable environments130 How to tell a Martian my heart is on the leftUnderworlds132 Persephone and I are underground135 The outer dark138 Cocytus142 Niflheim145 The man with no hands147 Each of us the centre of a circlePostscript150 God submits a grant application to the Canada Council153 Notes163 Acknowledgements