Quantum Ghosts by Julia Ponder

The word quantum suggests dizzying equations and esoteric theory. The poetry in Quantum Ghosts is by no means scientific unless you can count the observations of the natural world and its profound influence on the individual. Instead, quantum serves as a metaphor for overlapping modes of being, experiences, and understanding. We are all living in multiple realities when we read a poem. Schrödinger’s cat is both living and dead until someone peers into the box. Poetry, too, requires an observer and, until then, exists in multiple realities, forms, and meanings. How do we reconcile profound loss with the expanse of beauty all around us? How does love thrive while the world seems to be falling apart? Quantum Ghosts invites readers to consider the multiple realities that exist within and around us.

“Julia Ponder is a naturalistic observer of consequence and possibility via matter and energy inhering into aesthetic suggestion of ideas and memories. Each poem in Quantum Ghosts bleeds into an articulation that was always lying there, waiting for the poet.”

–Dennis Doherty, author of The Bad Man, Fugitive, Crush Test, and Black Irish