SF Poetry: Take a Stroll on the Lyrical Side

Over the past year, we’ve shared several topics related to the arts and science fiction –

We’ve looked at SF Art and hopefully come away with an appreciation of some extraordinary talents.

I hope my piece on Astrophotography inspired you to look up and admire the cosmos.

We’ve shared some Thespian arts and robot actors, including a reprise of the Boston Dynamics robots.

Most recently, I shared my choices for an SF Playlist, which I can report is now in the overplayed category; I’m enjoying every selection, every time.

It’s time now to close out the year with SF Poetry. A recent session of the St. Charles Writers Group (sponsored by the St. Charles Public Library, St. Charles, IL) considered the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. Along with reading and discussing his poetry, we were challenged to compose a poem of our own in his style. So, of course, I elected to try an SF Poem and came up with The Case of a Mounting Sorrow.

That effort got me thinking about what SF Poetry might be out there. I, of course, fired up the Google machine and checked it out. I was surprised to find there the usual “best of” type lists but not an extensive catalog of SF Poems. Not sure of their “search engine optimization” efforts, but here are three lists that popped right up:

              Poetry for Science Fiction Fans

              Five Pieces of Poetry Science Fiction Fans Will Love

              Crabmonsters and Sentient Darkness: Ten Great SciFi Poems [sic]

The topics covered ranged from space travel to monsters, dragons, and interplanetary colonization, which is pretty much what Science Fiction covers. A few poems were on multiple lists—David Bowie’s Space Oddity, for example.

As varied as the topics are the forms. The list includes song lyrics, epic poems, haiku, and unique structures. Even if you’re not an SF fan but enjoy poetry as art, I would commend the verses to your attention.

I have to admit the Edgar Allan Poe exercise was not my first attempt at SF Poetry. For a limerick exercise, I composed Lunar Gravity: A Limerick in Three Parts (inspired by my yet-to-be-published novel). In celebration of National Poetry Month, I penned a short epic, The Voyage of the Argo. Add to that the Poe piece, The Case of a Mounting Sorrow, and it’s time for a poetry section.

That brings us to a new feature at www.wstevewilson.com – SF in Verse. Check it out and watch for the holiday entry, Santa to the Rescue, dropping next month in time for Christmas.

So, what do you think? Do you have some favorites? Do you like science fiction poems, or are they not your thing?

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by.