Critical Commentary

Ellen Bass finds that Swanson’s “graceful” collection gives us a glimpse into Curie’s “fierce devotion to science” as well as the “unforeseeable consequences” of her work—“issues which continue to be urgently relevant today.”

Poet and Nobel Laureate in chemistry Roald Hoffman says of the book: “The waypoints of Marie Curie’s life have long been known; what Eleanor Swanson does is to take us by her sure poetic hand and lead us into feeling. In this cycle of touching poems, Marie Curie lives.”