Publisher Description

Present-day astronomy, vast, complex, is looking through darkness to distant objects and times. Yet its discoveries aren't exclusively scientific: from the moons of Pluto to the Doppler effect, the night sky screens a place where math meets myth. Now, in Zero Kelvin, in scenes that shift from the mountains of Goma to the mountains of the moon, from galaxies that feast upon their neighbours to a solar sail unfurling above Earth's orbit, Richard Norman's poetry probes both newly glimpsed corners of the universe, and the myths which bring them into focus.
Experiment
It is a human urge—
to orbit backwards at great speed.
Experimentally, you do it
and then the crack of lightning,
the open-ended snowflake, splits the sky.
Just as the sculptor cut the fat off space,
you going backwards renders time.
Seconds drop like filings
when a magnet is turned off.
Praise for Zero Kelvin
"All at once the elements collapse and expand, become inseparable and remote, beautiful and terrifying – this is what Richard Norman's poems do to us. We feel stars, those tiny suns, as words blazing through the page; like dust or sand they leave a residue in our thoughts, worlds deep, so we might inadvertently carry them to work, or to the bed of a lover. Here is where language consumes us, absolute and intangible, between reality and myth." —Leigh Kotsildis, author of Hypotheticals

Back Cover

Present-day astronomy, vast, complex, is looking through darkness to distant objects and times. Yet its discoveries aren't exclusively scientific: from Pluto's moons to Curiosity Rovers, the sky remains a place where math meets myth. Now, in Zero Kelvin, Richard Norman's poetry probes the new heavens that are being generated daily by astronomical research.TheologyObjects crossing or approaching the orbit of Neptune ... are given mythological names associated with the underworld. - "How Minor Planets Are Named," International Astronomy Union[...]Theology, the study of dark matter,conclusively has proventhe well of hell is zero Kelvin.Movement ceases,molecules foetally curl into themselves.And at the lowest circle of our galaxya black hole squats.O wondrous Goatse of another realm!Radio source,mass of four million suns,beams out pure revelation.Cults worship at its altar.The faithful pray:Do not leave your house - sit quietly and listen.An LED illuminatesthe ether in the vitrine.And models show the diodes rapidly recedingand the backlit screen expanding,and the transudation,and something dug up from deep withinthat will not act and will not leave,a thing that makes a truce with space,a relic of the underworld.

Author Biography

Richard Norman lives in Halifax. He has recently published poetry in The Malahat Review, The Puritan, and CV2, among other Canadian journals. His first collection is forthcoming from Biblioasis.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Desert /3 Strange Days /6 Filament /7 Scan /8 Kingdom of Kush /9 Lake Nyasa /12 City /14 Vukovar /16 Pool /18 Goma /19 Valve /22 Spring /23 Harbour /25 Ocean /26 On Winter Nights /28 Cedar /29 Drinkers /30 Voices /32 Under the Volcano /33 Qom /34 Seville /36 Killers /37 Tsar Bomba /39 April /40 Living Water /41 Far From Here /43 Solitaire /44 Event Horizon /45 The Core /46 Eye 1 /47 Eye 2 /48 Experiment /49 Operation /50 Redaction /51 Banquet /52 Theories /53 Solar Sail /54 Theology /55 Patmos /57

Review

"Weighty with metaphor."--The Telegraph-Journal

Promotional

Co-op availableGalleys available upon requestPossible blurbs from Ben Lerner and Arthur TzeNational radio campaign (targeting NPR/The Writers Almanac/Science Friday/Radiolab)National print campaign targeting Poetry, Verse Daily, The New Criterion, Poets & Writers, Poetry Show, Parnassus, Slate, etc; St. Ann's Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, and Failbetter, where Norman's been published; David Orr, and morePrint campaign will also target poetry bloggers/reviewersCover design and promotional materials to emphasize science contentGoodreads giveawaysPromotional broadsides

Long Description

Present-day astronomy, vast, complex, is looking through darkness to distant objects and times. Yet its discoveries aren't exclusively scientific: from the moons of Pluto to the Doppler effect, the night sky screens a place where math meets myth. Now, in Zero Kelvin , in scenes that shift from the mountains of Goma to the mountains of the moon, from galaxies that feast upon their neighbours to a solar sail unfurling above Earth's orbit, Richard Norman's poetry probes both newly glimpsed corners of the universe, and the myths which bring them into focus. Experiment It is a human urge-- to orbit backwards at great speed. Experimentally, you do it and then the crack of lightning, the open-ended snowflake, splits the sky. Just as the sculptor cut the fat off space, you going backwards renders time. Seconds drop like filings when a magnet is turned off. Praise for Zero Kelvin "All at once the elements collapse and expand, become inseparable and remote, beautiful and terrifying - this is what Richard Norman's poems do to us. We feel stars, those tiny suns, as words blazing through the page; like dust or sand they leave a residue in our thoughts, worlds deep, so we might inadvertently carry them to work, or to the bed of a lover. Here is where language consumes us, absolute and intangible, between reality and myth." -- Leigh Kotsildis, author of Hypotheticals

Review Quote

"Weighty with metaphor" - The Telegraph-Journal

Competing Titles

pH Neutral History Lidija Dimkovska 9781556593758 16.00 Copper Canyon 2012 Open Air Bindery David Hickey 9781926845241 15.95 Biblioasis 2011 Probably Inevitable Matthew Tierney 9781552452615 15.95 Coach House 2012 Hypotheticals Leigh Kotsilidis 9781552452493 15.95 Coach House 2011 Approaching Ice: Poems Elizabeth Bradfield 9780892553556 15.00 Persea 2010

Excerpt from Book

EXPERIMENT It is a human urge-- to orbit backwards at great speed. Experimentally, you do it and then the crack of lightning, the open-ended snowflake, splits the sky. Just as the sculptor cut the fat off space, you going backwards renders time. Seconds drop like filings when a magnet is turned off. OPERATION From high above the now night sky a satellite begins to stare. It has an eye that cuts right through. More and more, its circle is going elliptical as it gets slightly older. You stare into the cauldron of the sky, induced to not be there, and see the sky inside the body-- dark like the inside of a heart and the lightning darker still. Navy veins streaming down, grounded in the spark that makes the muscle start. A machine washes out the blood deep in the infinity of space. REDACTION Every hole redacts a star. A ghostly light surrounds each hole. Most ghosts are just reflections back from certain curves when they first bent. Gazers trace their shape out of the blackness that is all above. BANQUET Like life on Earth, galaxies eat one another. From close up a Caligulian banquet, but dispassionately stately from a distance. The Milky Way''s neighbour, Andromeda, currently devours one of its slaves. When you attend, you watch with fascination as it towels off its maw and spits the remnants out into the vastest vomitorium. More than a dozen clusters scatter around Andromeda, cosmic remains of vast past banquets and the preceding emetophilia. Prophets who know the scientific method believe our galaxy and its neighbour will eat each other three billion years from now. Social mobility being what it is, slaves may then be emperors. THEORIES The filaments and voids in smaller surveys are cephalopods swimming slowly out of sight until only open ocean''s left, the vast expanding scope. We see big space and remnants of mnemonic microwaves, leaves roused on a summer day, warm animal embrace of spouse. We don''t know what order they belong within or if their core contains our futures. We send our astrophysicist to dive parabolically, weightless, almost in space. Completely paralyzed by ALS and handled gently by the crew, he grins and rotates in these shallows. SOLAR SAIL My friend, look out upon the surface of Titan, the sea of methane impossibly unfrozen. Weigh the weight of the fire, or the blast of the wind, or bring back a day that is past. Be the prophet who gazes through the speculum and sees an image like a face. What''s in the polished stone is the same blackness that stores mnemonic static. Look through a telescope-glass darkly at that old time, the face inside the static. A high priest by the name of Eric Demaine, youngest professor at MIT, will adapt the map-fold to a solar sail. Light landing on the massive sheet propels the instrument away at speeds exceeding time. Would it not be wondrous to watch it enter its new orbit, to see it slowly open, our chrysanthemum in space? THEOLOGY Objects crossing or approaching the orbit of Neptune . . . are given mythological names associated with the underworld. --"How Minor Planets Are Named," International Astronomy Union An image appears in the crafted glass. The same image that will shrink to fill a contact lens. The same horror in an instant of losing irretrievably an heirloom. It''s only natural stars recede from the expectation of a billion gazes. But everything is stored. The night returns restored projected from the data. Behind the screen the algorithm (soon to graduate to etiquette) reveals the folk inside the medium. These women photograph themselves, upload their dust into a cloud. Seeded, these banks of clouds will fill-- each particulate of dust, each pearl congealing. Theology, the study of dark matter, conclusively has proven the well of hell is zero Kelvin. Movement ceases, molecules foetally curl into themselves. And at the lowest circle of our galaxy a black hole squats. O wondrous Goatse of another realm! Radio source, mass of four million suns, beams out pure revelation. Cults worship at its altar. The faithful pray: Do not leave your house-- sit quietly and listen. An LED illuminates the ether in the vitrine. And models show the diodes rapidly receding and the backlit screen expanding, and the transudation, and something dug up from deep within that will not act and will not leave, a thing that makes a truce with space, a relic of the underworld. PATMOS After Nikolai Morozov The thorn trees in the terraced yard. The little place, below the little sun. The gleaming face, beneath the girandole of bursting stars. Look at the figures in the sky. Look at the horsemen riding there. All has been assigned on this last day of life.

Description for Sales People

continues the growing trend of combining science with poetry (compare to: Christian Bok, Crystallography; Robert Kroetsch, Seed Catalogue; Christopher Dewdney; Jay MillAr; the comp. titles below, especially those from Coach House) Plays on interest in space research that was reinvigorated after the successful Mars landing in August 2012 Draws on a range of sources, from the scientific to the theological

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