Standard candles (Robert Kroetsch Series)

There is a beginning and a middle.
There is an arc of narrative.
There is a word, a large engraved initial.
There is imperative-
a cause, a god. Or not.
-from "Let us compare cosmologies"

Like the ever-widening universe, Standard Candles expands on Alice Major's earlier themes of family, mythology, and cosmology, teasing out subtle wonders in form and subject. Her voice resonates through experiments with old and new poetic forms as she imbues observed and imagined phenomena-from the centres of galaxies to her own backyard-with the most grounded and grounding moments of human experience, masterfully linking cosmology with the human heart. Readers of poetry and other speculative literatures in search of an emotional dimension that seamlessly intersects with the four dimensions of space and time will surely find it here.