Praise for Chaos Theory for Beginners

“In Chaos Theory for Beginners, Ronda Piszk Broatch turns quantum physics into a surprisingly accessible lens through which we can better grasp not only our relation to the larger universe but to ancestry, interpersonal relations, and the unconscious. Characterized by an affective echoing of sounds throughout myriad associative insights, the poems in this book confirm Broatch as an inimitable no-nonsense romantic who intuits the dialectical advantage in examining doubt and secular revelation. While employing the logic of a ghazal in the confines of a sonnet, extended metaphors within surrealistic imagery, the staggered discernment of visual caesurae, or simply the direct impact of a musically resonant statement, the poet is always a brilliant conveyor of the hidden worlds sequestered behind the first scrim of existence. As she says in one poem, ‘We need evidence / sometimes to know we exist, an observer to gift us whole / and holy.’ Whether rendering the implications of the night sky, the love of a partner, the history of a discovery, the absurdity of contemporary politics, or the blood-links to our past, Broatch is in fact that affirming observer.”

—Kevin Clark, author of The Consecrations

Smart and spirited, playful and intimate, Ronda Piszk Broatch’s Chaos Theory for Beginners probes the patterns and uncertainties of our daily lives for the vast solar systems within us, inviting, into our human relationships of grief, wonder, and desire, the cosmos, “tumbling/ its spent fireworks, blowing confetti/ under our door.” Reading these poems, I am re-ignited with possibility, reminded how the matter and movements of our lives, small as they are, are as exquisite as the complex galaxies, as brilliant and limitless as the stars.

  —Jennifer Elise Foerster. author of The Maybe-Bird

Purchase Chaos Theory for Beginners $16.99

Sometimes, I Tell the Universe This 

is how events will unfold: the eagle

will catch the salmon, or the salmon will live another day

     nearer to spawning, evolve as sustenance

for resident orcas who are diminishing

in astonishing numbers. Sometimes I tell the All-One  

     No    even though my mind

dangles before me this or that prophesy, that I,

being a part of every living thing declare an equal

     say, and that I say No   I will not succumb

to exploitation, become statistic on the planet’s

list of casualties, not lose my life my dears my loves

     to extinction, or the mutterings of deniers, that hope

is a choice I make, that somehow—and by this, I mean

I will it so—the waters will cool a little, the salmon will

     thread their way, creating redds in all the rivers, orca young

grown to mate to flourish to teach us their wisdom

before time stretches its elastic to exhaustion.

     Sometimes rise doesn’t have to mean

sea level, but rather rebellion and compassion, means

stitching rescue to our breast pockets, weaving time

     into lifelines to each wild and fragile body.

—first appeared on River Mouth Review, 2022