Working Hypothesis by Charles Malone

A generous skepticism about the nature of knowledge, paired with an abiding care about nature itself, undergirds Charlie Malone’s frank, witty, and deeply searching Working Hypothesis. Child of scientists, witness to the many ways in which knowledge so often becomes a means of hiding from the world rather than its means of revelation, these poems take upon themselves an ancient command, to know thyself, understanding all the while, that such an ideal might not exist. Science and reason cannot save us from our situation—not only the impending doom of climate crisis, but the more quietly troubled fates of our personal lives. But Malone also trusts that knowledge begins in wonder, and if one can learn to undermine our self-seriousness with serious play, we might move beyond the facts into more startlingly realized realms: “for a long time, none of us understood / that the work we do on our spirits / isn’t a lonely work.” The genial spirit of these poems is ample proof of the claim—read the book, and you’ll find yourself less alone.

–Dan Beachy-Quick, Author of Variations on Dawn and Dusk.

“Life is a science without answers in Charlie Malone’s stunning collection of poems rooted in the naturalness of human existence. These are poems in search of possibility. A wanting of that which is absent juxtaposed against a vivid and vibrant world that simultaneously taxes and excites our minds and physicality of being. These are poems of wonder.
The place where wonder meets the restless incompletion of a life in progress.”
–FELICIA ZAMORA,  Author of Body of Render