The Space-Time Continuum By Edward Willett
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n his novel Time Enough for Love, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein included a number of aphorisms supposedly taken from the notebooks of his centuries-old central character, Lazarus Long. One of these I have ever since taken a kind of mischievous pleasure in sharing with poets of my acquaintance: “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” You might think, Heinlein occupying such an exalted place in the science fiction pantheon, that his proclamation would be enough to keep poetry far, far away from science fiction, and science fiction writers far, far away from poetry, separated by a vast gulf like that between the stars...but in fact, science fiction poetry is a thriving literary field in its own right. Just what is and is not science fiction poetry, however, is a matter for some debate (but then, so is just what is and is not science fiction). Some people spread the umbrella of science fiction poetry so wide that it stretches all the way back to ancient Greece to encompass The Odyssey. Others consider science fiction poetry to be, simply, poetry with “recognizable science fiction themes” (space travel, time travel, etc.).
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At the other extreme, there is The first is poetry concerned a theoretical argument that with science and its influence science fiction poetry cannot on our world. Collings’s exeven exist, because (if I’ve ample is “Relative Distances: got the argument right), our Nantucket, 12.29.85” by sense of the fantastic when Robert Frazier, which he we read prose arises from says uses “the imagery and the narrative’s description of language of astronomy to a reality different than our explore not only the distances own. Poetry, this argument of outer space but also the goes, does not describe any equally frustrating distances kind of reality, but is entirely of inner space, of relationself-reflexive: it’s about itself ships between father and and its own images. This child in a world altering means, says theorist Tzvetan faster than each can underTodorov, that stand and in “poetry cannot which father be fantastic.” and child may, Science some critical fiction poetry in But the trousense, be faris a thriving ble with that ther apart than theoretical the stars they literary field argument is watch.” in its own that it is quite easy in the real A second right. world to point stream conto poems and sists of poems say, “that’s a science fiction that attempt to bridge the poem.” How do you know gap between science fiction it’s a science fiction poem? stories and science fiction Because it was conceived, poetry, presenting science written and published as one. fictional narratives in poetic (It’s like Damon Knight’s form, so that the poetry endefinition of science fiction: hances the effect of the nar“Science fiction is what we rative and vice versa. point to when we say it.”) A third stream, Collings sugCertainly there is a thriving gests, is concerned with the community of poets who relationship between SF popractice what they consider etry and poetry at large, and to be science fiction poetry. works “away from traditional So...what kind of poems do forms, language, and/or conthey point at when they say, tent, to assert the genre’s “that’s science fiction poetry?” ‘alien-ness,’ its other-ness within the community of Poet Michael Collings, in poets.” his essay “Dialogues by Starlight,” online at www. His primary example is “Shipstarshineandshadows.com/ wrecked on Destiny Five,” essays/2004-03-29.html, a 1986 poem by Andrew identifies three main streams Joron that, he says, “lacking of science fiction poetry. consistent rhyme, patterns,
May/June 2011