News at Eleven: [Tracy K.] Smith doesn't flinch from these,

though she uses the astronomical to gain perspective, and perhaps even a kind of healing, though the kind of evil that drives this section can't be undone.

The title poem uses the concept of dark matter to explore the darkness in humanity, including the 2009 case of Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter locked in a basement for 24 years, human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay, rape, torture, war, and the destruction of the planet: "How else could we get things so wrong,/Like a story hacked to bits and told in reverse?---"

from Blogcritics: Life on Mars by Tracy K Smith

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