Awards

• Short-listed for League of Canadian Poets / Raymond Souster Award 2016 (Canada)
• Short-listed for Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry - Alberta Literary Awards 2016 (Canada)
• Short-listed for Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry – Alberta Literary Awards 2016 (Canada)
• Winner of Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry, Alberta Book Awards, Book Publishers Association of Alberta 2016 (Canada)
• Winner of Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry, Alberta Book Publishing Awards, Book Publishers Association of Alberta 2016 (Canada)

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9781772120912

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Reviews

Alice Major's 10th poetry collection, Standard candles, covers a huge distance in its slim text, racing through a dozen different poetic forms and countless cosmologies. It references everything from Greek mythology to quantum uncertainty to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the inventor of the standard candle itself. The book is like an ultra-dense kernel containing all things-history, theology, astronomy, geometry, an infinite list. It's the universe right before the Big Bang, titanic forces contained within a few thousand tightly packed words, almost ready to explode and race endlessly out. [Full reiew at http://bit.ly/1W6w7s5] -- Bruce Cinnamon Vue Weekly

Alice Major's 10th poetry collection, Standard candles, covers a huge distance in its slim text, racing through a dozen different poetic forms and countless cosmologies. It references everything from Greek mythology to quantum uncertainty to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the inventor of the standard candle itself. The book is like an ultra-dense kernel containing all things-history, theology, astronomy, geometry, an infinite list. It's the universe right before the Big Bang, titanic forces contained within a few thousand tightly packed words, almost ready to explode and race endlessly out. [Full reiew at http://bit.ly/1W6w7s5] -- Bruce Cinnamon Vue Weekly #6 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list (Edmonton Nonfiction) for the week of November 06 2015 The Edmonton Journal The Edmonton Journal #10 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list (Edmonton Nonfiction) for the week of November 13, 2015 The Edmonton Journal The Edmonton Journal In her latest poetry collection, Standard candles, Alice Major continues to draw from science as a source of metaphor to ground the big ideas floating around the universe. Like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who bring scientific concepts to a public consciousness in their documentary television shows, Major takes up the poet's essential challenge to make grand concepts accessible and relatable to the reader. The result is a collection of thoughtfully crafted suites that feel mythological or biblical in scale, yet as familiar and common as our offices or kitchens... In reading Standard candles, there is the potential for a most palpable experience of having one's mind blown. Readers will certainly find themselves putting the book down to stare out the window at the night sky and feel a sense of loneliness wrapped in communion. Prairie Books Now, Fall/Winter 2015 -- Steve Locke Prairie Books Now

Alice Major's 10th poetry collection, Standard candles, covers a huge distance in its slim text, racing through a dozen different poetic forms and countless cosmologies. It references everything from Greek mythology to quantum uncertainty to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the inventor of the standard candle itself. The book is like an ultra-dense kernel containing all things-history, theology, astronomy, geometry, an infinite list. It's the universe right before the Big Bang, titanic forces contained within a few thousand tightly packed words, almost ready to explode and race endlessly out. [Full review at http://bit.ly/1W6w7s5] -- Bruce Cinnamon Vue Weekly #6 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list (Edmonton Nonfiction) for the week of November 06 2015. The Edmonton Journal #10 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of November 13, 2015. The Edmonton Journal In her latest poetry collection, Standard candles, Alice Major continues to draw from science as a source of metaphor to ground the big ideas floating around the universe. Like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who bring scientific concepts to a public consciousness in their documentary television shows, Major takes up the poet's essential challenge to make grand concepts accessible and relatable to the reader. The result is a collection of thoughtfully crafted suites that feel mythological or biblical in scale, yet as familiar and common as our offices or kitchens... In reading Standard candles, there is the potential for a most palpable experience of having one's mind blown. Readers will certainly find themselves putting the book down to stare out the window at the night sky and feel a sense of loneliness wrapped in communion. Prairie Books Now, Fall/Winter 2015 -- Steve Locke Prairie Books Now #9 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week of January 16, 2016. The Edmonton Journal In her poetry she uses her knowledge of specialised - even arcane - fields in the same way that British playwrights Tom Stoppard and Michael Frayn have done: to provide startling and vivid analogies with the human dynamics of a complex emotional universe with which her readers will be more familiar. This is a handsomely produced and carefully organized book, divided into themed sections... This substantial collection gives ample evidence of Major's poetic craft and verbal dexterity... [A] fine collection. [Full review at http://bit.ly/1PbKz4e] -- Michael Bartholomew-Biggs londongrip.co.uk

Author Information

Alice Major emigrated from Scotland at the age of eight, and grew up in Toronto before coming west to work as a weekly newspaper reporter. She served as the City of Edmonton’s first poet laureate from 2005–2007. A widely-published author, she has won many distinctions. Her most recent book, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, received the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for non-fiction as well as a National Magazine Award gold medal. Her website is www.alicemajor.com.

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