Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Rebecca Elson was an astronomer whose research involved dark matter--hidden mass which can be inferred only from its influence on observable objects: "As if, from fireflies, one could infer the field." Her poems, too, make inferences and speculate; they set out always from meticulous observation and are not deterred by a knowledge of how little we can know of the universe. A Responsibility to Awe collects her best poetry, along with extracts from her notebooks. The extracts record the ways in which she refined her understanding of "The known human forces, love & hunger, fear and hope--," and explore her own approaching death. An autobiographical essay provides background to her alert imagination, from her upbringing as a geologist's daughter in Canada to her scientific career around the world.
Synopsis
The reissue of Elson's best writing reintroduces her to the 21st century.
Synopsis
Rebecca Elson's
A Responsibility to Awe reissued as a Carcanet Classic
A Responsibility to Awe is a contemporary classic, a book of poems and reflections by a scientist for whom poetry was a necessary aspect of research, crucial to understanding the world and her place in it, even as, having contracted terminal cancer, she confronted her early death. Rebecca Elson was an astronomer; her work took her to the boundary of the visible and measurable. "Facts are only as interesting as the possibilities they open up to the imagination," she wrote. Her poems, like her researches, build imaginative inferences and speculations, setting out from observation, undeterred by knowing how little we can know.