ELECTRICITY
By:
March 13, 2025
A (pro- or anti-) science-, mathematics-, technology-, space-, apocalypse-, dehumanization-, disenchantment-, and/or future-oriented poem published during sf’s emergent Radium Age (c. 1900–1935). Research and selection by Joshua Glenn.
Two threads are closely hafted,
The ends are unconfined.
’Tis “yea” and “nay,” — not grafted,
Not grafted, — but entwined.
Dim is the weft that mates them
Close and inanimate,
But wakening awaits them,
And they the same await.
End unto end is taken, —
Fresh “yea” and “nay” ignite,
And “yea” and “nay” awaken,
Into one moulding shaken,
And from their death comes, — light.
— 1901. Found in Modern Russian Poetry: Texts and Translations (1917), by Paul Selver.
PS: Selver’s introduction is snarky, even misogynistic, regarding the author: “The language of her poems is often beautiful, but often, too, they contain hazily mystical thoughts expressed with an abundance of rather highly coloured imagery. The same kind of hysterical affectation is characteristic of other Russian poetesses. All that is morbid, overwrought, and fantastic in the Russian spirit seems to become unpleasantly accentuated in the work of these feminine writers.”
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.