Speculative Fiction and Poetry

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Speculative Fiction and Poetry

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1LShelby
Ene 24, 2019, 12:47 pm

I find that I don't tend to read poetry for the sake of reading poetry much anymore. I think maybe because I don't know where to find the kind of poetry I like best: narrative verse. (My addiction to story spans a great many mediums.) From my childhood I've been a fan of Kipling and Robert Service. But I wasn't too picky... from Casey at the Bat to the Diverting History of John Gilpin -- if a fun story was written in verse, that was a definite plus.

I was also always delighted to run into bits of poetry in the speculative fiction books I read, and would frequently memorize them. I can still recite a bunch of things from the Lord of the Rings, from the Dragonriders of Pern books, and from Susan Cooper's the Dark is Rising series. For me the addition of these musical/poetical bits felt like they made an imaginary world just a bit more real. Perhaps because my own world had always been filled with songs.

Later I encountered the Filk community and began writing my own speculative fiction songs, (two of the publications that I'm listed as a contributor to on my Author page are Filk Songbooks.)

To me a large appeal of poetry is the structure of it, the rhythm and the rhyming patterns. Modern free form poetry appeals to me a lot less... but my daughter is very fond of it. She is particularly fond of the symbolism and the imagery aspects of poetry.

So, what about the rest of you? Do you like to read poetry? Why?
Do your like speculative fiction, and if you do what do you think of the combination of speculative fiction and poetry.
Can anyone think of examples of non-speculative fiction prose works that incorporate bits of poetry in them?
Do those works use poetry in a similar way to the speculative fiction works I mention above, or do they do it differently?

Is there any kind of special connection to speculative fiction and poetry?

2drardavis
Abr 12, 2019, 9:53 pm

I used the following poem in Time Travelers Are Schizophrenic to fill in some backstory. In other books I used shorter verses. But, I find it fun to try new things.

The Brotherhood cried from the wilderness.
We heard it calling, “Help us!” Then darkness.
The Prince it carried. He who from afar
Proclaimed peace to our broad arm of stars.
If He were lost, then mighty forces swift
Would dread, black Chaos set again adrift.

Our crew together gather’d deep below
In wetness dark and cold. We did not know
How far away our destiny that night
Across the universe in hyperflight
Would take the people of the Fish all brave
And true through oceans of the gravity wave.

In darkness came aboard the crew of bold,
The great Leviathan’s belly hold
To fill with life and energy. To spawn
New order, ready, sailing by the dawn.
The threads now wrapped themselves like golden hair
To give us speed, to save the seed out there.

The Captain bubbled me ere break of day,
To swim down corridors into the blay.
I twirled the crystals as I took my post,
Leviathan spun and became a ghost.
From blay port looking aft for signs, but none
Were there. Blue Wissatassidine was gone!

The trail by then was old and diluted,
But Captain found its scent slyly muted.
Ichideras, our patron, sent the gift,
But warning, too, that we must be quite swift.
We dare not tarry. We must seize our fate.
If others were first, it would be too late.

We followed their trail through extraland,
As it did twist and twirl. They did expand
Their efforts back to safety sure to flee,
But lost they were and none but we could see.
The Prince again called out his message
As if he could still escape evil’s rage.

From emptiness the gravity wave storm
Tossed us round and did our course transform.
The souls ahead were swallow’d up as well,
And suffered in swirls and whirls of hell.
How we survived, know the gods alone,
When out they spat us, the Prince was gone!

Back, Captain brought us to reality,
And search we would to far infinity
Had not the primitive voices led us
To blood-spoor tainted riches tremendous!
I listened while we jump’d from pool to pool,
Their words in crystal waves became my school.

The golden threads we carefully salvaged,
But lives came not from out the strewn wreckage.
Too slowly we follow’d, for time it took
To load what we could. While I wrote the book,
No rescue from behind for salvation
No hope ahead to prevent destruction.

But one more jump and then we were outside
The Airmen’s system. Now we need to hide,
There are too many of them. Sphere of red,
Five piles of treasure has, on deserts dead,
Just like the pearl of white. That one has ten,
And two less, the drop of blue-wet Eden.

The Captain order’d us to raise the thread;
Precious pure water, too, for days ahead.
My own command would be the ghostly scouts,
To set the scoops and nets all round about,
Unseen by Airmen until Captain’s call
To come back aboard ship, and take it all.

When in between we can’t be seen nor can
We see the Air. Large piles first was the plan
To take, then those within their artifacts,
Entwined, twisted, woven, to extract.
Our Brother’s bones must remain our own
Before the Air learn what should not be known.

3Texmati
Editado: Abr 16, 2019, 4:46 pm

I fell in love with poetry at a young age - Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, Alice in Wonderland, LOTR, my mother's lunchbox notes. I memorized The Walrus and the Carpenter, and must have inherited the gene, because I started writing it as well.

A lot is incorporated a lot into my own first novel, titled 'In Verse,' but I wouldn't call it speculative fiction, since it's not set in a fantasy world. It's a story about one poet who meets another through his attempt to save a poem that moves him from being published by the glamour press that he works for.

4blacklynal
mayo 24, 2019, 8:20 pm

This feels like an interview! I feel up for it tonight.

Q: Do you like to read poetry? Why?
A: Yes. My favorite poems are microfiction with strong imagery, a lyrical sound, and a structure that adds another layer to the story. The line between poetry and prose forms can be difficult to find.

Q: Do you like speculative fiction, and if you do what do you think of the combination of speculative fiction and poetry?
A: Speculative fiction is versatile. I like how spec-fic poems can quickly explore an idea or create a mood for another world. In one of my novels-in-development, I use an acrostic poem in another way: to reveal the motivation of a recently deceased character whose decisions had a big impact on the main character's life. A letter, a soulgaze, or a messenger ghosts can accomplish the same task, but a poem fit better.

Q: Can anyone think of examples of non-speculative fiction prose works that incorporate bits of poetry in them?
A: Hmmm. A Southern romance novel called Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts included song lyrics that tied into the plot.

Q: Do those works use poetry in a similar way to the speculative fiction works I mention above, or do they do it differently?
A: I can think of more examples of songs in speculative fiction but none for novels outside of spec-fic.

Q: Is there any kind of special connection to speculative fiction and poetry?
A: Possibly. I think there is a brew of curiosity, rebelliousness, and literary appreciation that inspires both speculative fiction and poetry. In some traditions around the world, fantastical tales were passed down in song and rhyme; those traditions might also continue to inspire spec-fic poetry.