In Accelerated Silence: Poems

By Brooke Matson and Mark Doty

“Anguished and unblinking . . . Accomplished poetry that will move those who have sorrowed—that is, everyone.” —Library Journal

“The thin knife that severed your tumor,” writes Brooke Matson in these poems, “it cleaves me still.” What to do when a world is split—terribly, wholly—by grief? When the loss of the beloved undermines the most stable foundations, the most sacred spaces, of that world? What else but to interrogate the very fundamental principles themselves, all the knowns previously relied on: light, religion, physical matter, time?

Often borrowing voices and perspectives from its scientific subjects, In Accelerated Silence investigates the multidimensional nature of grief and its blurring of boundaries—between what is present and what is absent, between what is real and imagined, between the promises of science and the mysteries of human knowing, and between the pain that never ends and the world that refuses to. The grieving and the seeking go on, Matson suggests, but there comes a day when we emerge, “now strong enough / to venture out of doors, thin // and swathed in a robe,” only to find it has continued “full and flourishing and larger than before.”

Sensual and devastating, In Accelerated Silence—selected by Mark Doty as winner of the Jake Adam York Prize—creates an unforgettable portrait of loss full of urgency and heartache and philosophical daring.

“Blends chemistry, astrophysics, light, and time with grief, mystery, resilience, and love into some truly gorgeous poems that you don’t have to be a scientist (or a poetry nerd) to love.” —Electric Literature

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781571317353

Book preview

I

ODE TO DARK MATTER

I speed through the moonless

night—porch lights thinning

into silhouettes of trees.

Emptiness isn’t empty,

the radio scientist insists. Relieved

you’re here to hold the aching

stars apart, a muted backdrop to the howl

of headlights streaking by, I bend

the pedal to the floor.

His voice describes a mine

deep under the earth

where professors hunt the flutter

of your wings

in accelerated silence—

wait for you to slip, to exhale

into their sensitive machine, eager

to assemble your breath

in data streams. They think

you’re already theirs:

a variable to ensnare in a net sum,

the way children trust

answers to soothe.

Dear wild unknown: tow the borders

of this universe far beyond

our grasp. Whatever we see, we break—

count and dismember

all we touch:

The earth. The atom. Anatomy. Eve.

Be the animal that escapes

our love without a wound.

ELEGY IN THE FORM OF A POMEGRANATE

Eve was like that: eating a pomegranate

like smashing a chest of rubies.

She split the whole

vermilion world in a violent need to know.

My finger circles the crown, traces its tight circumference,

red and round. I pluck it from the mound

the grocer arranged and hear the question

I asked you that night, when we were just beginning

to trust each other: If I were a fruit, what would I be?

The Latin for fruit is pōmum

and some reading that Bible believed

Reviews for In Accelerated Silence

[Ženija Minka · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful poems filled with lyricism and ruminations about the Universe and our place in it.

[The Devil Wears Plaid · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful read that definitely made me cry a few times.