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Worlds Without End Blog

Porte on Poems Posted at 7:57 PM by Jonathan McDonald

jynnantonnyx

It looks like we’re not the only ones to try to class up this roughneck joint. Rebecca Ariel Porte has written an article on io9 about the best science fiction-oriented poetry:

I’ve really done it now. I’ve invoked a forbidden word: poetry. Purveyors of poetry are inherently suspect in most circles. We are seen as a cross between broccoli-pushers (“Try it, you’ll like it!”) and emissaries from the imperial courts of high culture come to impose our foreign customs on the subjugated masses….

Of course there are scifi readers who already really like poetry—and poetry readers who really like scifi—but we tend to exist (however passionate we are about our sestinas and our ray-guns) in the fringes of both communities.

She makes a good argument for reading poetry before going on to make recommendations, and I have to admit that I’d heard of none of them before reading this article. After breezing past classic genre poets like Lucretius and Tolkien, she moves on to more modern verse. I did rather enjoy this excerpt from A. Van Jordan’s “The Superposition of the Atom” in Quantum Lyrics that Porte included in her piece, if only because of the superhero references:

the cat is forever dead
and alive. My phantom has existed for years

in limbo, believing life would be more
pastel if he were paying the bills,

sweating through rejection,
or figuring out what tie to wear

as Ray Palmer. I never know
if he’s there or not, until jealousy

gets the better of him and he comes
out of paradox into a scene,

for which, there is no future.

I’ve got more books to add to my reading list, now.

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