Everything Endless might only be a short collection, coming in at 88 pages but its reach is vast, stretching across time and space, invoking the idea that matter can neither be created nor destroyed—although it can change forms. (Please note this is a very simplified version of the law of the conservation of mass! I am here for the poetry and not facts and theories.) The collection is an exploration of this concept, from the beginnings of the universe, to the journey across its incomprehensible expanse, to the stardust which became us and to which we return when our time is done.

From the moment you step into the book, the energy burst shown on the graphic propels you into space and into that first section “No/Beginning”. Even this title is something which shows the power that question holds over us. Was it the beginning? There has to have been something to cause the Big Bang – hadn’t there? 

The pages in this section contain two poems per page, one by each author. Although they lie separate on the page, when you read and re-read them, they seem to lift off the paper and wrap themselves around each other. They spin and layer in a manner which mirrors the orbit of particles and planets around us. The “Dark Bang” of Hodge births light, fire, ‘manifest conscious germs’ whilst Addison creates the universe and in “Beginning” ‘unfolds multi-dimensional origami’ (this must be my favourite line in the collection, it is so perfect).to ‘scatter conscious germs’. The call and response continues, displaying our lack of care for distant explosions because of our lack of knowledge, whilst we query there must be something which triggered all this. Then Hodge introduces the idea of the soul, with its ‘seeing song, our celestial whisper’ (another perfection), his ‘Children of Order’ are at the opposite pole of Addison’s ‘Children of Chaos’ who destroy and push and pull ‘forever’ as planets form and stars take their place in the galaxies. Humanity begins to emerge ‘from atoms born inside a star’ (Addison’s “A Soul Never Forgets”), complete with emotions—our “Inner Space” (Hodge)—where they are worlds, within galaxies’.

The best-named poem in the collection (and in this section) must be Hodge’s “Boiling Frog Syndrome” which shows us the path we have walked towards our own extinction, mirrored by the environmental concerns of Addison in “The Holocene Extinction”.

The cosmic journey continues on, introducing aliens, humanity’s confliction towards extra-terrestrial life—we want it, we fear it—an exploration of which underpins Hodge’s “Knowing”. And then spinning us on again, we become the space travellers seeking ‘the hope of stardust ... (“Stardust”, Hodge). And ultimately, ‘From the beginning, we remain, without end.’ (“Power vs Strength”).

The entire collection commands your attention and finishes with “Though You Always Are”, a truly beautiful prose poem co-authored by Hodge and Addison. Written from the personified perspective of Time and Space, these elements claim our beings We are after all ‘the gift of stardust’. They seek to remind us of what is beyond whilst we exalt ‘limitation’. 

In the work of Addison and Hodge, human frailties and fears are put in the perspective of the immensity of the cosmos. We are very much the children of space. We have always been Everything Endless.

Highly recommend.

/5

Available from Amazon.