The biographical note to An Acceleration & A Calm, published by above/ground press, states that P.M. Samson died in 2021. Further, he was considered the backbone of the Creative Writing Department at OSU from 1978 until his death; he published sparingly but left a trove of writings just now beginning to see the light of day. Perhaps surprisingly, the note seems to take issue with An Acceleration & A Calm being described as an autobiographical sheaf when its historical details apparently bear scant relation to the known facts of the poet’s life.
P.M. Samson is in fact the invention of poets Jon Cone and K. Lipschutz. As such An Acceleration & A Calm is a literary hoax in the tradition of Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments (1916) or Jonathan Swift’s Predictions for the Year 1708 (1708). In other words, it’s a holy goof, take it all with a pinch of salt, or something stronger if need be.
To supplement the poems, esteemed critic Barnard Swallow provides what is a vital commentary, adding pithy explanatory notes. Swallow may be well known to you – but almost certainly not – through his light verse in the TLS as Bunny Jean Swallow, and as the editor of legendary coach Bum Phillips’ selected correspondence Them That’s Hired and Them That’s Fired Up (LSU Press). He is also the authorised biographer of Baron Wormser (one of Samson’s contemporaries, and who happens to be the literary executor of Samson’s estate).
Whether or not the poems of An Acceleration & A Calm are biographical, at the very least they can often be taken as wise words for life. We can learn much from the titles alone – “Dress for the job you were just fired from”, “Chilling means something different out here” and “On having to get out more”. Elsewhere a disappointing lecturer spurs the poet on to declare in “O Canada” that “in sum, beware the Ides of March/and every other day of the year”.
But let’s speak of the poems, for speaking is as speaking does, and as Samson says himself (in “A Perfect Score. Zero”), “to speak is no big deal, but to speak/has been my thing, my jam/my French raison, my Biblic balm”.
Samson may have been an academic but based on the content he was no crusty. He experiments with form in “excerpts from Index to Atomic Jazz Boulevard”, his index referencing John Coltrane, Lou Reed and a penchant for imported Italian spun-wool sweaters just one of his named wardrobe peccadillos. Elsewhere he alludes to Stevie Smith, holy modal jazz, Ratso Rizzo, Jim Harrison and Fellini. The poet even places himself at the least academic of locations, the gym (“At the Gym”). He does not dare to even hold a peach (in “Imitation of Eliot”). The highlight of the sheaf may well be contained in the plain language of “February Marital Report”, in its awful inedible soup and snow-shovelling heartbreak.
Barnard Swallow’s commentary is entertaining, referencing Kerouac, Pound and Donald Sutherland (the latter apparently advised Swallow that the perfect poem, like perfect pasta, has a slight hardness). Of particular interest will be Swallow’s digression on whether two of the poems (both previously anthologised and always in tandem) may have been written by anonymous employees of Mr Samson. Understandably we cannot offer any opinion on this (and don’t have an opinion), but we can say with certainty that An Acceleration & A Calm is a delightful introduction to the poet’s world. As Samson’s grandson reportedly said: Respect!
Publisher: above/ground press
Publication Date: January 2026
Poetic Justice 
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