Last month I provided a little "teaser" on SF poetry in the Q&A section of my column. This month, I’m sending you coordinates to steer free of cloaked enemy vessels so that you can land safely in a symbiote-free zone. Prior to disembarking, I’ll beam over the necessary updates so that you can complete your primary mission: to read and write poetry.

Count down in T-minus 10-9-8…

So what is Science Fiction and Speculative poetry?

A scientist I’m not, but "science", is "a branch of knowledge requiring systematic study and method, especially one of those dealing with substances, animal and vegetable life, and natural laws" (Oxford American Dictionary). The "Scientific Method" is based upon hypotheses that are tested over and over again to obtain the same or similar results. Some refer to these results as "scientific facts". Others remain skeptical. The old cliché, "yesterday’s fiction is today’s reality" comes to mind…

"Fiction" is a "product of the imagination", and is often viewed as non-factual. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t true—or that it can’t be true somewhere at some time.

Enter speculation.

When we speculate, we’re forming opinions, hopefully educated ones, on the unknown, without definite knowledge or the proverbial "facts". Some would say today’s speculation is tomorrow’s scientific reality. All we have to do is turn to the visionaries and prophets of science and speculative fiction to see the recurrent resonance of this phenomenon. Take Asimov, for example, as a well-known scientist whose powers of imagination opened up a universe filled with robots.

Smoosh them all together and you have the multiverse that is science fiction and speculative poetry, or SF/S, as it’s often coded.

So what themes flow through this genre? SF/S poetry explores the same themes as SF/S short stories, anime, video games, TV shows, and films. I’m sure these all seem familiar: ice crystals on Europa; green goo on asteroids; solar flares; waves and particles of light; space station politics; experiments gone awry; heroic quests for knowledge and treasures; unknown elements wreaking havoc; saviors or foes from alternate dimensions; mutated viruses; space satellite retrievals; sex in a grav-free zone; microscopic sulfar-eating beings; shapeshifters; the 10,000 Martian words for sand; the socio-cultural constraints of inter-species dating; genetic mutations; cloning; being a host for a symbiote; dreams of electric sheep and other cyborg-esque wonders. The human condition? You bet? The alien condition? You got it! Intelligent scum in a fish tank? Sure. An intelligent rock? Why not?

Now that you know the stuff of which it’s made, you’re ready to get writing. How to proceed? In the same way you would plot a course for the Crab Nebula: read the work of the pioneers in this quadrant. I suggest you begin with these poets, who are real people in real time and space interacting with real and/or imagined experiences--and all those fuzzy realms between.

I was most fortunate to obtain "cyberviews" with several people whom I believe to have their fingers on the universal pulse of poetry. Thank you again!

When asked how he would characterize the contributions of SF/S poetry, author Gerry Williams, President of the San Diego Chapter of the Mars Society, offered this pithy, philosophical comment: "A few well-chosen words placed appropriately on a page can inspire us to reach for the stars -- and get there."In a cyberview with Bruce Boston, I learned that he won a "Pushcart Prize, an Asimov's Readers' Choice Award, a record seven Rhysling Awards, and [was] the first Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association." He’s written twenty-nine books: "18 poetry collections, 9 short story collections, one novelette, and one novel." The following poem, "For Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets," appeared in Asimov's SF and also won a Rhysling.

FOR SPACERS SNARLED IN THE HAIR OF COMETS
If you've heard the stellar _vox humana_
the untuned ear takes for static,

if you've kissed the burning eyelids
of god and seized upon the moon's

reflection, disjointed and backwards,
in the choppy ink of some alien sea,

then you know how sleek and fleshy,
how treacherous, the stars can become.

While the universe falls with no boundary,
you and I sit in a cafe of a port city

on a planet whose name we've forgotten:
the vacuum is behind us and before us,

the spiced ale is cool and hallucinogenic.
Already the candle sparkles in our plates.


David Kopaska-Merkel, another one of my favorite SF/S poets, has graciously allowed me to share this poem with you. (Aren’t SF/S poets a generous tribe?)

The Soapstone Image
I turned the squat statue in my hand.
It recalled the ancient Venus figures of Eurasia.
_Very old_, the vendor hissed,
_At least 50,000 years.
The species is extinct.
You like?
How much?_ I asked,
pulling out of my pocket
some disks
adorned with heads of state.

In a cyberview with Kopaska-Merkel, he shared the following about his own poetic process:

I write poems because I want to. I enjoy it. Also, the act of
self-expression is fulfilling in and of itself. I think that writing is like
meditation in the sense that both can help the doer grow as a person. Writing has the added benefits of producing something that can be shared with others and, sometimes, material rewards as well. Some poets say that the poems are inside, forcing their way out. In a sense this is true for me. I sometimes am engaged in work or play and a line or idea will pop into my head. I'm not forced to write these things down, but indulging the muse is rewarding. One of the best ways to get ideas for poems is to read other poetry. The challenge to take a basic idea, and put a different spin on it, is often very tempting.