Poetry Planet is Reality, folks. What is Poetry Planet you might ask? It's a monthly segment I've decided to produce for my favorite podcast, StarShipSofa. And as you might guess it showcases Poetry. Science Fiction Poetry. Or Fantasy Poetry. Or Dark Poetry. Or Speculative Poetry. All of the above and more, probably.
This has been a long labor. I first had the idea last year to record more poetry for Tony, but he wasn't fielding submissions anymore. It's a lot of work! I had the idea that I could do a monthly segment and do all the work of receiving submissions and just deliver a finished project to Tony. But I just couldn't wrap my mind around getting it done. Then it was New Years, and I was considering what could be my New Years Resolution. I decided I would create a first article and spring it on Tony, so he couldn't refuse! I joined the
Science Fiction Poetry Association and ordered Suzette Haden Elgin's Handbook of Science Fiction Poetry. I roamed around the web familiarizing myself with things. I rolled the formatting around my mind and decided the first show would be simple, with only one poem - an SF poem about poetry by Suzette Haden Elgin that I'd found on her website, and otherwise, just talking about poetry, how I've come to enjoy reciting and reading it aloud and giving guidance on how listeners might learn how to appreciate poetry.
But then life happened. I got radio silence from the powers that be (all volunteers) at the SFPA. Life happened for them too, I guess. I couldn't raise any signs of life from Ms. Elgin and so I started looking around for other poems I could. I turned to a couple of the poets whose poems I'd already read for SSS and inquired about poems about poetry. I introduced myself at the SFPA Forum and YahooGroup and announced my intention for creating the segment and got good feed back (not overwhelming though - I guess I was too vague in my request for submissions).
Laurel Winter and
Bruce Boston gave me wonderful poems that I'm using and
Ann Schwader was so helpful and supportive of the idea, that I am indebted to her indefinitely. Check out Bruce Boston's poem
"The Poetry of Science Fiction" on his site.
Finally about a month ago I wrote my first draft of the article, recorded it in very rough form and sent it to Tony for approval, which he gave with his usual enthusiasm! Yippee! I could get going! Then I couldn't find the time to record the actual thing. I had grand plans of using a new recording software, but I had even less time to delve into THAT. I wanted to have music and well, it all seemed insurmountable.
Then I discovered that April is National Poetry Month in the USA. Oh MAN! I've got to get it done before the opportunity comes and goes! So I gave myself a kick in the butt and submitted the final product (flawed as it is) to Tony.
You can listen to show No. 184 by going to
StarShipSofa's website. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to listen on the website or listen on
iTunes Poetry Planet is after the main fiction at the 51 minute mark (Thanks Steve!).
And if you are a fan of poetry or of StarShipSofa, or of all things Science Fiction or just of me :-), please link, link, link! Thank you! And if you are a poet, my idea for the next segment in May 2011 is "First Contact". If you have any poetry even vaguely fitting that label, please get in touch with me. For discussion of the SSS show go to the
Forum, where all possible links will be posted as well!
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