Synthesizing Gravity

The first-ever collection of essays by one of our most distinguished poets, the Pulitzer Prize–winner and former Poet Laureate of the United States. Synthesizing Gravity gathers for the first time a thirty-year selection of Kay Ryan’s probings into aesthetics, poetics, and the mind in pursuit of art. A bracing collection of critical prose, book reviews, and her private previously unpublished soundings of poems and poets—including Robert Frost, Stevie Smith, Marianne Moore, William Bronk, and Emily Dickinson—Synthesizing Gravity bristles with Ryan’s crisp wit, her keen off-kilter insights, and her appetite and appreciation for the genuine. Among essays like “Radiantly Indefensible,” “Notes on the Danger of Notebooks,” and “The Abrasion of Loneliness,” are piquant pieces on the virtues of emptiness, forgetfulness and other under-loved concepts. Edited and with an introduction by Christian Wiman, this generous collection of Ryan’s distinctive thinking gives us a surprising look into the mind of an American master. “Synthesizing Gravity is a delight, if a tart and idiosyncratic one . . . If Ryan gives us a view through a keyhole, it’s a view often made richer by its constraints.” —The New York Times Book Review “Reading Ryan’s writing will charge and recharge the mind . . . a wonderful entry point to her work.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant . . . For poetry enthusiasts and skeptics alike, this will be an inviting portal into the mind of one of America’s greatest living writers.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Damn fine prose . . . What a wonderful voice [Ryan] displays.” —John Freeman, “Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2020”

Based on the IAG scientific assembly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this volume combines papers in the fields of gravity and geoid, geodynamics, and geodesy in Antarctica. The volume contains papers on recent progress in absolute and relative gravimetry, on models of the global gravity field, theoretical developments in physical geodesy, and many examples of regional gravity field and geoid models. Geodynamics chapters include papers on earth rotation and geopotential variations, reference frames and global deformations, as well as a section on the combination of space and terrestrial methods for deformation observations. The current status of geodesy in Antarctica is illustrated by a number of papers.

This volume is part of the Ceramic Engineering and Science Proceeding (CESP) series. This series contains a collection of papers dealing with issues in both traditional ceramics (i.e., glass, whitewares, refractories, and porcelain enamel) and advanced ceramics. Topics covered in the area of advanced ceramic include bioceramics, nanomaterials, composites, solid oxide fuel cells, mechanical properties and structural design, advanced ceramic coatings, ceramic armor, porous ceramics, and more.

These Proceedings include the written version of papers presented at the IAG International Symposium on "Gravity, Geoid and Earth Observation 2008". The Symposium was held in Chania, Crete, Greece, 23-27 June 2008 and organized by the Laboratory of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Greece. The meeting was arranged by the International Association of Geodesy and in particular by the IAG Commission 2: Gravity Field. The symposium aimed at bringing together geodesists and geophysicists working in the general areas of gravity, geoid, geodynamics and Earth observation. Besides covering the traditional research areas, special attention was paid to the use of geodetic methods for: Earth observation, environmental monitoring, Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS), Earth Gravity Models (e.g., EGM08), geodynamics studies, dedicated gravity satellite missions (i.e., GOCE), airborne gravity surveys, Geodesy and geodynamics in polar regions, and the integration of geodetic and geophysical information.