Glow

Ann Hudson's Glow investigates the mystery of radium: the vision of Marie Curie who discovered it through labor and sheer will; its rise to fame as a health craze; the critically important work it did for the medical field; and its widespread use in luminescent paint which made watches glow in the dark. But Glow is also an investigation into what makes us tick, our curiosities, ambition, and our sense of purposeful work. These poems explore how one luminous substance-the hunt for it, the search for its secrets and powers-can be understood as a life force of its own, even as it has the power to whittle that life force to nothing. These poems show radium as destructive as it is illuminating.