We Mammals in Hospitable Times

Gifted with fascinating material—Martin was the National Science Foundation's Writer in Residence in Antarctica last year—this poet has rooted her first book in polar incongruities and explosive detail; in her own words, she has "rocketed beyond the age of miracles" into the age of entropy and coincidence. Even her titles sound like slightly unhinged research projects. In "The Effects of Earth's Magnetic Poles on Free-Space Particle Flux," she notes: "The Eskimo language is often consulted by crossword makers,// kayak, mukluk, igloo, ukluk penciled in by the lawyer on a train." In "Out of Whose Womb Came the Ic," Martin successfully fuses myth and science: "An underwater camera in the sludge of an Antarctic lake/ shows a carpet of cyanobacteria radiating orange light. …// When Yup'ik girls have their period, they know not to look at the sky." "Dropped Things Are Bound To Sink" reveals how proportion skews our sense of order: "Under the smallest bentback cricket leg rotates this enormous planet…." In "Everything We Can See in the Universe Glows," extragalactic neutrinos and ancient Korean manuscript are simultaneously discovered, while "In Which Our Heroine Considers Her Alternatives" features a speaker who marries a worm. One senses that the possibilities are endless.