Poetry

I've always loved poetry. Maybe always is too strong a word, but for years now at least I've enjoyed poetry, both reading and writing it. Some of the most powerful things I've ever read were poems. Poems that lament war, that challenge us to look at ourselves more carefully, that celebrate spring or an ugly river in England. My first publication was a poem, about the small mountain that stood over the city in Spain where I spent a semester in college.

But I've written very little poetry recently. I have a few out on submission now, but they're mostly older poems. I wrote one speculative poem a couple weeks ago, and I'm pleased with that. And I wrote a handful of scifaiku last winter, 4 of which will appear in Scifaikuest. But I want to get a better feel for speculative poetry in general. I tried recently to get a hold of Alchemy of Stars through our library. It's a collection of all the Rhysling winners for the past 25 years. But no library in the state of Colorado had a copy. I might have to go out and buy one. I also read Jeff VanderMeer's collection--the only thing of his that I haven't been completely thrilled by, though it wasn't bad by any means...just not great. And I read the poems that appear on Strange Horizons and other ezines. But I guess even all those things hasn't been enough to inspire reams of poetry from me.

If you have any recommendations of poetry, I'd love to hear them. And otherwise, here's hoping my muse drinks a bit of poetic ink. In fact, I've just had an idea--we'll see what happens.

Comments

Celina Summers said…
well you know I'll recommend my beloved Romantics-- but I'm finding a lot of fun poetry on the web these days.
Daniel Ausema said…
I'm especially interested in what other speculative poets are doing...but I have enjoyed some of the romantics I've read, and I haven't read enough. Not a big fan of Lord Byron, however.
Elliot said…
Speaking of speculative poets, Gene Wolfe's award-winning poem "The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps" is available at his Wikipedia article.
Daniel Ausema said…
yeah, it's at Strange Horizons too--they're doing an interesting series on all the Rhysling-winning poems, going year by year, so at least when they analysed that year it was available.