In Physics for Beginners, John Harn seems to bend the natural world to his will, upending what we know to give us something fresh. His poems inhabit loss and though they are often steeped in the indifference of geologic time and weary religious notions, they are tempered by humor and 'fragile beauty.' This is an exceptional first book. JOHN HARN was born in Dayton, Ohio, grew up near Detroit and attended Michigan State University. After graduating with a BA in Education, he spent a year in Galveston, Texas, working at the Community Arts Center on the Strand. In 1978, he joined the MFA Poetry program at the University of Oregon in Eugene where he was an advisee of Ralph Salisbury. He taught introductory poetry writing there for two years and for one year at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.