Entanglements: Physics, love, and wilderness dreams
A new poetry collection from award winning poet, Jack Mayer, (Proverse Prize 2019) inspired by his pediatric practice, wilderness hiking and the implications of quantum physics.
Released November 2022
Poetry collection inspired by relationships and how quantum physics illuminates our connections. Every sub-atomic particle exists only in relationship to another. It seems that everything in the cosmos is dependent on interconnection. A pediatrician reflects on the mysteries of our entanglements from the macroscopic experience of his practice in rural Vermont to the inconceivably small, old, and far away of quantum cosmology. These poems have marinated in wilderness hiking where they are composed and infused with the singular mindfulness of a quiet forest.
There are no equations in this work, and the reader need not know about quantum theory to appreciate the mysteries explored, and the connections affirmed.
Author Jack Mayer introduces his poetry collection, Entanglements, for the Proverse Autumn Reception 2022. Watch Video
Praise & Reviews:
“In these prose poems, a physician artfully expresses his being in the world, blending science, wit, and the pang of human experience.”
— Alan Lightman, novelist, essayist, physicist, and educator. Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at MIT.
“Once again Jack Mayer – a writer I’ve admired for years – draws close to the white heat of reality. These poems from his personal life, and his professional experiences as a doctor, compel us to look, to listen. Mayer’s poetry makes us, somehow, more alive.”
— Jay Parini, D. E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing · Middlebury College, poet and author of Robert Frost: a Life, Benjamin’s Crossing, The Last Station and many more.
“From heartbreaking verses evoking his medical practice amidst rural poverty, to the mysterious “spooky action at a distance” entanglement of quantum physics, and on to musings on the covid pandemic, on love, and on wilderness and dreams, Jack Mayer’s poems celebrate entanglement in all its aspects—entanglement of doctor and patient, of quantum particles, of long-time lovers, of human and nature, and even entanglement of the body’s parts seen as a medical student dissects a cadaver. For all the poems in this remarkable collection, entanglement serves as metaphor for the broader interconnectedness of our world.”
— Rich Wolfson, Benjamin F. Wissler Professor Emeritus of Physics, Middlebury College
“Jack Mayer has once again combined a sense of wonder, a deep curiosity. a keen eye, and an almost infinite capacity for empathy and love with the ability to translate those into the 'best words in the best order'. This is a beautiful book about the miracle that each of us represents in this chaotic and somehow ordered universe, especially when we find that special entanglement called love.”
— Michael Epstein, Retired Assoc. Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Founder, www.EpsteinReads.com (Bookmarks) and Chairman of the Board Mary L. Blood Memorial Library, West Windsor, Vermont. Read Full Review