Sometimes, a journey can be cathartic, in more ways than one.
Adventure can be a physical wanderlust of the body, or an afternoon reading romp of the mind. I’ve always found that traveling or trekking is a great way to push myself out of a creative rut. I’m not talking about a quick weekend excursion to the beach; I like to move base camp to another country for a month, and then just day trip from there. Modern life allows us to be digital nomads, stateless wanderers.
This life in a modern future struck me on a recent trip to our favorite village in rural southern Spain. Jimena de la Frontera has a sort of speculative poetry vibe in its own right, a hard-working town where Starlink connections and hybrid cars work right alongside cobblestones and brute animal power. Certainly, the first Neolithic visitor who camped out tens of thousands of years ago on the rocky outcrop overlooking the valley down to Gibraltar and Morocco beyond could have scarcely imagined the civilizations of today…
But I bet they would understand the yearning to create art and poetry, as a means to reflect on their hopes and dreams. To be sure, we (for the most part) no longer chisel on rocks, but we still contemplate the state of our existence… and poetry still permeates this endeavor, in not just why we live, but what we live for.
You can get a taste for this journey in the very latest of speculative poetry in Star*line 47.3. This seasonal publication covers the very best in original fantasy, horror and science fiction poetry, with some art thrown in for good measure. Some of our faves include:
It’s always just out of reach in this short segment by Ngo Bihn Ank Khoa:
23rd century
flying cars remain
retro fantasies
Or the banal reality of the dilemmas faced by a far future time, in this short bit of prose by Greg Schwartz:
lunar colony—
where
to put the landfill
Or how about an unwanted infestation of cosmic proportions in Souvenir by David C. Kopaska-Merkel:
from Arcturus
at first we thought cute bugs but they
proliferated and ate
and ate and ate and
bullets didn’t stop them
we hoped at least
the Martian base
but no, antennae
waved there too
soon enough
And that’s just a very short and small sampling of the amazing tales within. Every issue contains a wealth of speculative prose, long and short.
Don’t be afraid to try your hand at some speculative poetry yourself; it’s a great way to warm up and get the creative juices flowing in terms of what’s possible… and Star*line is always open for submissions. And heck, ‘science fiction poet’ just looks cool on your resume...
We’ve said it before: while we all consume popular art in the form of movies and TV shows, we don’t take in enough literary fiction, to include poetry… but it doesn’t have to be this way. Be sure to pick up Star*line 47.3, for a cerebral journey in speculative fiction.