The Infinity Room

by Gary Fincke

Overview

In The Infinity Room the reader will find polished, precise poems that are built around the author’s experiences of touring Nevada’s atomic bomb test sites, the Chernobyl disaster site, and Oak Ridge, as well as living for decades near Three Mile Island. These iconic landmarks of the threat of nuclear technology become more than talking points as they provide grounding for narratives of faith and skepticism from multiple viewpoints that employ science, religion, history, myth, politics, and popular culture, including a piece about the author’s experience as a student at Kent State at the time of the National Guard shooting. The poems here are tightly controlled but electric, dark yet vibrant with love and longing, and packed with memorable characters and places that are presented through a singular, lyrical voice that connects us to what it means to be human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611863109
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2019
Series:	Wheelbarrow Books
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	118
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Gary Fincke is Emeritus Charles Degenstein Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Writers Institute at Susquehanna University. A two-time winner of a Pushcart Prize, he has also won seven book prizes, including the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction, The Journal Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, and the 2017 Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose.

Table of Contents

Distraction Therapy 1

i

The Perimeter Melody 5

For Good 6

During the Retirement Semester 7

The Earth, We're Told, Is Humming 9

The Malignancy of Stars 11

The Fury that Follows Small Disappointments 12

The Fear Warehouse 14

Shadowing the Gravedigger 15

Assessing the Dead 17

Science 19

The Shelter Revival 21

The Infinity Room 23

The Startling Language of Shriveling Leaves 26

Preserving Cursive 28

The Lost Continents 30

The Secret City 33

ii

The Absolute 45

After the Bomb Drill, Miss Hartung Teaches Weather 46

The Nuclear Age 47

Upon the Tongue 49

While I Am Standing 50

The Light 52

The Rain after Sunrise 56

The Secret Voice 57

Stunned 58

A Blanket Was over Her Body 59

Merging, Slowing, the Second Sun 61

Worship 63

The Sum Total 65

The Lengthening Radius for Hate: A Sequence 67

iii

The Chernobyl Swallows 89

Turning Sixty-Five: How to Rid Your House of Ghosts 90

Visiting the Living Writers Class 93

The Hands 95

Dreamtime 97

Elegy 99

Anniversary 104

Acknowledgments 107

Editorial Reviews

These beautifully wrought poems don’t make me afraid. They don’t make me bitter. They cheer me to know that such a voice exists, that such a life exists, that sees with honesty and wisdom. “What matters, for serenity, / Is believing in your words,” he writes. I myself am a great believer in Fincke’s words.”
—FLEDA BROWN, Professor Emerita, University of Delaware, and Faculty, Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University
 

From the Publisher