Poet Aislinn Hunter asks, What if our writers and artists, scientists and revolutionaries had used other words or media, told other stories, developed alternative assumptions and conclusions? In "The Possible Past, " she finds tentative answers, expressed in startling, vivid imagery and dark musical rhythms. The book's four sections -- Errors, Inventions; The Progress of History; Public Records, Local Histories; and Field Notes -- speak of its sweep as Hunter's poetic meditation on memory moves magically from the local to the universal.