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"All poetry is experimental poetry," Wallace Stevens once said. And the world of contemporary poetry is much like the world of fantastical and science fictional prose narratives. And if you value diversity, weirdness, and contradiction in your reading, you could do a lot worse than to develop a taste for both science fiction and poetry.
I've really done it now. I've invoked a forbidden word: poetry. Purveyors of poetry are inherently suspect in most circles. We are seen as a cross between broccoli-pushers ("Try it, you'll like it!") and emissaries from the imperial courts of high culture come to impose our foreign customs on the subjugated masses.
As a fan of science fiction and poetry, I find myself in a delicate position, desiring neither to push roughage or impose verbiage, but wanting very much to be able to share with readers of poetry what I love about scifi (and with readers of scifi what I love about poetry). More »
