A series of (pro- or anti-) science-, mathematics-, technology-, space-, apocalypse-, dehumanization-, disenchantment-, and/or otherwise future-oriented poems published during sf’s emergent Radium Age (c. 1900–1935). Research and selection by Joshua Glenn.
Radium Age CATASTROPHE poems include: W.H. Auden’s GARE DU MIDI | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Ambrose Beirce’s FAME | Ambrose Beirce’s THE PASSING SHOW | F.V. Branford’s THE MOON | Valery Bryusov’s THE COMING HUNS | Valery Bryusov’s THE DAYS SHALL COME OF FINAL DESOLATION | Karel Čapek’s WHAT OUR AGE HAS DONE | John Davidson’s “EARTH ALREADY TO ITS DOOM…” | Lee Wilson Dodd’s VACUUM | T.S. Eliot’s “THE EYES ARE NOT HERE” | Ralph Milne Farley’s THE END OF THE WORLD | Ford Madox Ford’s THE MOTHER | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Louis Ginsberg’s WATERFALLS OF STONE | Leslie Pinckney Hill’s ARMAGEDDON | D.H. Lawrence’s TO LET GO OR TO HOLD ON —? | D.H. Lawrence’s THE TRIUMPH OF THE MACHINE | D.H. Lawrence’s THE REVOLUTIONARY | John Lehmann’s THIS EXCELLENT MACHINE | Archibald MacLeish’s THE END OF THE WORLD | Archibald MacLeish’s EPISTLE TO BE LEFT TO THE EARTH | Louis MacNeice’s AN ECLOGUE FOR CHRISTMAS | Osbert Sitwell’s THE END | Clark Ashton Smith’s AFTER ARMAGEDDON | Wallace Stevens’s A POSTCARD FROM THE VOLCANO | Eve Brodlique Summers’s OF RUINED CITIES | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Jakob van Hoddis’s WELTENDE | Lucian B. Watkins’s SAN FRANCISCO’S 18th OF APRIL (1906) | William Butler Yeats’s THE SECOND COMING |
& more to come.
Radium Age COSMIC AWE poems include: Anonymous’s ASTRONOMIC JOSH | Eric Temple Bell’s “TIME IS A MARVEL…” | Andrey Bely’s EUTHANASIA | Alexander Blok’s “INTO CRIMSON DARK” | William Stanley Braithwaite’s DEL CASCAR | William Stanley Braithwaite’s DISTANCES | F.V. Branford’s MASTER CELLS | Valery Bryusov’s CHILDHOOD FANCIES | Valery Bryusov’s THE VOICE OF OTHER WORLDS | H.D.’s STARS WHEEL IN PURPLE | Robert Frost’s DESERT PLACES | Julian Huxley’s COSMIC DEATH | Robinson Jeffers’s NOVA | Eva Amendola Kühn’s COSMIC FORCES… | D.H. Lawrence’s SPACE | C. Day Lewis’s FROM FEATHERS TO IRON | Alfred Noyes’s WATCHERS OF THE SKY | Frederik Pohl’s ELEGY TO A DEAD PLANET: LUNA | Herbert Read’s MUTATIONS OF THE PHŒNIX | Kenneth Rexroth’s “HEAVEN IS FULL OF DEFINITE STARS…” | Michael Roberts’s MIDNIGHT | Clark Ashton Smith’s FROM PLANET UNTO PLANET WHIRLED | Clark Ashton Smith’s THE NEMESIS OF SUNS | Clark Ashton Smith’s THE STAR-TREADER | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Wallace Stevens’s FABLIAU OF FLORIDA | Sara Teasdale’s THE VOICE | Irma Valeria’s LET’S LAUGH AT THE UNIVERSE | Paul Valéry’s THE YOUNG FATE |
& more to come.
Radium Age DEHUMANIZATION poems include: Jessica Dismorr’s MONOLOGUE | T.S. Eliot’s “AT THE VIOLET HOUR…” | W.W. Gibson’s THE MACHINE | D.H. Lawrence’s DARK SATANIC MILLS | D.H. Lawrence’s MEN AND MACHINES | D.H. Lawrence’s THE GULF | D.H. Lawrence’s HOLD BACK! | D.H. Lawrence’s LET US BE MEN | D.H. Lawrence’s MEN LIKE GODS | D.H. Lawrence’s ROBOT FEELINGS | D.H. Lawrence’s SOULS TO SAVE | Amy Lowell’s A COMPARISON | Armando Mazza’s TORMENTS | Carl Sandburg’s MANUAL SYSTEM |
& more to come.
Radium Age DISENCHANTMENT / UNSEEN FORCES poems include: John Davidson’s “MATTER INCANDESCENT” | Ford Madox Ford’s GREY MATTER | Thomas Hardy’s EPITAPH FOR G.K. CHESTERTON | T.E. Hulme’s CINDERS | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Walter Lowenfels’ APOLLINAIRE AN ELEGY | Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s TO MY PEGASUS | H.L. Mencken’s A BALLAD OF LOOKING | Herbert Read’s EQUATION | Herbert Read’s THE RETREAT | Michael Roberts’s ROCKS ARE IMMUTABLE | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM
& more to come.
Radium Age DYSTOPIA / UTOPIA poems include: Anna Akhmatova’s “ALL IS SOLD, ALL IS LOST” | Ambrose Bierce’s ELIXIR VITAE | T.S. Eliot’s “WHAT IS THAT SOUND…” | Aleksei Gastev’s FACTORY WHISTLES | Rudyard Kipling’s MACDONOUGH’S SONG | D.H. Lawrence’s THE EVENING LAND | D.H. Lawrence’s SUBURBS ON A HAZY DAY | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Mina Loy’s LUNAR BAEDEKER | George William Russell’s THE CITIES | Wallace Stevens’s THE IDEA OF A COLONY | Jean Toomer’s HER LIPS ARE COPPER WIRE
& more to come.
Radium Age FAR-OUT MATHEMATICS / FOURTH DIMENSION poems include: W.H. Auden’s IN THE LAST OF THE OLD YEAR | Laurence Binyon’s NUMBERS | F.V. Branford’s FAREWELL TO MATHEMATICS | Valery Bryusov’s NUMBERS | Velimir Khlebnikov’s “THERE IS THAT SMELL…” | Vachel Lindsay’s EUCLID | Archibald MacLeish’s SIGNATURE FOR TEMPO | Louis MacNeice’s REFLECTIONS | Arthur Schnitzler’s LEINBACH’S PROOF | Michael Roberts’s NOTE ON Θ, Φ, and Ψ | Michael Roberts’s PERSPECTIVE | Edna St. Vincent Millay’s EUCLID ALONE | Gertrude Stein’s A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS | Wallace Stevens’s “RATIONALISTS, WEARING SQUARE HATS” | W.J. Turner’s IN TIME LIKE GLASS | Max Weber’s THE EYE MOMENT
& more to come.
Radium Age FUTURE WAR poems include: Guillaume Apollinaire’s THE LITTLE CAR | Laurence Binyon’s THE ZEPPELIN | Enrico Cavacchioli’s THE MISSILE | Blaise Cendrar’s ORION | Charles M. Doughty’s THE CLIFFS | Robert Grant’s THE SUPERMAN | Rudyard Kipling’s THE TRADE | D.H. Lawrence’s BOMBARDMENT | D.H. Lawrence’s FUTURE WAR | Amy Lowell’s MIDDAY AND AFTERNOON | Amy Lowell’s VENICE AGAIN | Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s BOMBARDMENT | J. Lewis Milligan’s THE SUPER-MAN
& more to come.
Radium Age NEW TECHNOLOGIES poems include: Apollinaire’s ZONE | Margaret Ashmun’s THE GREATER POWER | Ambrose Bierce’s THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT | Gordon Bottomley’s TO IRON-FOUNDERS AND OTHERS | Randolph Bourne’s SABOTAGE | Valery Bryusov’s DUSK | Blaise Cendrars’ “…I’M ON THE WAY” | Hart Crane’s LINES SENT TO ALFRED STIEGLITZ | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | Adele Gloria’s EXPRESS TRAIN NO. 89 | Charles Buxton Going’s THE SONG OF STEEL | W.E. Henley’s A SONG OF SPEED | Vicente Huidobro’s EIFFEL TOWER | Rudyard Kipling’s THE SECRET OF THE MACHINES | C. Day Lewis’s TRANSITIONAL POEM | C. Day Lewis’s “AIR WAS ALL AMBUSHES” | Harriet Monroe’s A POWER-PLANT | Harriet Monroe’s THE TELEPHONE | Harriet Monroe’s THE TURBINE | Herbert Read’s THE INNOCENT EYE | Walter Lowenfels’s FROM AN EXPOSITION… | Carl Sandburg’s UNDER A TELEPHONE POLE | Edith Sitwell’s THE LADY WITH THE SEWING MACHINE | Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | Louis Untermeyer’s PORTRAIT OF A MACHINE |
& more to come.
Radium Age SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH poems include: Robert Bridges’ THE TESTAMENT OF BEAUTY | Valery Bryusov’s THREE APPLES | A.S. Eddington’s “THERE ONCE WAS A BREATHY BABOON” | A.S. Eddington’s ONE THING IS CERTAIN | William Empson’s INVITATION TO JUNO | William Empson’s LETTER I | Robert Garioch’s TRANSLATIONS FROM AN UNWRITTEN POEM | W.W. Gibson’s WINDOWS | Julian Huxley’s TO A DANCER | Robinson Jeffers’s NEW YEAR’S EVE | Robinson Jeffers’s SCIENCE | Robinson Jeffers’s TRIAD | D.H. Lawrence’s GIVE US GODS | D.H. Lawrence’s RELATIVITY | D.H. Lawrence’s THE THIRD THING | D.H. Lawrence’s UNDERNEATH | Vachel Lindsay’s THE HORRID VOICE OF SCIENCE | Vachel Lindsay’s THE SCIENTIFIC ASPIRATION | Hugh MacDiarmid’s STONY LIMITS | Hugh MacDiarmid’s THALAMUS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Archibald MacLeish’s MAN! | Kathleen Millay’s RELATIVITY | Marianne Moore’s IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR | Angela Morgan’s TO MADAME CURIE | Emil Raymond’s REFRACTION OF LIGHT | Herbert Read’s THE ANALYSIS OF LOVE | Michael Roberts’s SIRIUS B | Ronald Ross’s THE ANNIVERSARY | Emma Rounds’s PLANE GEOMETRY | R.S. Thomas’s AT IT [not Radium Age] | Erwin F. Smith’s SCIENCE | John Collings Squire’s THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST | W.J. Turner’s MISS AMERICA |
& more to come.
Radium Age UNKNOWABLE ALIENS / SINGULARITTY poems include: Max Beerbohm’s A SEQUELULA TO “THE DYNASTS” | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Robinson Jeffers’s ROAN STALLION | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | W.B. Yeats’s SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
& more to come.
W.W. Gibson’s FLANNAN ISLE | Vasilisk Gnedov’s POEM OF THE END | Aleksei Kruchenykh’s DYR BUL SHCHYL | Aleksei Kruchenykh’s “I COOKED MY BRAIN…” | Hugh MacDiarmid’s A DRUNK MAN LOOKS AT THE THISTLE | Vladimir Mayakovsky’s FROM “I” | Igor Severyanin’s STRANGE | Clark Ashton Smith’s AFTERWARDS |
& more to come.