The Improbable Swervings of Atoms

by Christopher Bursk

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.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of poems by one of the best creative writing professors that I had in college. I throughly enjoy his work.

[Stephanie Lenox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Bursk is at his best when he jams together history, science, puberty, and the desire to find one’s place in a mysterious universe. In a three-part volume, the first is structured chronologically, the second likewise, and the third, my favorite, spirals around more contemporary events in the poet’s life. The diction in his poems is not heavy-handed, and though I feel in competent, well-read hands, I don’t feel beat to death with political or intellectual insights. The tone is arch but honest, and he has great lines like this: “Is it alright/in Paradise to go on dreaming of still another paradise?”

[Simona · Rating 3 out of 5]

clever. interesting commentary on american culture and history

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

PPE 8/27/08

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, funny, disturbing, insightful; this was my introduction to Bursk, and I'm an instant fan, eager for more. I especially loved his use of Lucretius in these poems.

[Lenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book of poems which engage history in terms of a boy growing up in the 1950s and early '60s. Funny and vulnerable.