24 May 2009

Voyagers: The Contents

Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand has just been published. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or from Fishpond in New Zealand. You can also find out more about Voyagers, and buy it directly from the publisher, at the Voyagers mini-site.

Here are the contents of Voyagers. Although we weren't able to include every poem and every poet that we would have liked, I hope you'll agree that the anthology contains an impressive selection of poets.

The general themes of the sections are: "Back to the Future" - time travel. "Apocalypse Now" - apocalypses, nuclear and otherwise. "Altered States" - robots and other non-human, or transformed, life forms. "ET" - aliens. "When Worlds Collide" - astronomy, and the beginning stages of space exploration. "The Final Frontier" - life and exploration in deep space.

Introduction

Back to the Future

Anna Rugis, the poetry of the future
Louis Johnson, To a Science-Fiction Writer
A.R.D. Fairburn, 2000 A.D.
Janet Charman, in your dreams
Bill Sewell, Utopia
Alistair Paterson, Time traveller
David Gregory, Einstein’s Theory Simply Explained
Jenny Powell with John Dolan, Note to the Aliens
Raewyn Alexander, in the future when we grow new brains
Alan Brunton, F/S
Harvey Molloy, Nanosphere
Meliors Simms, Two Kinds of Time
Jack Perkins, Out of Time
Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway, Black Hole
Tim Jones, Good Solid Work

Apocalypse Now

John Dolan, The Siege of Dunedin
David Eggleton, Overseasia
Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Looking at Kapiti
Bill Sewell, The World Catastrophe
Rachel McAlpine, Satellites
David Eggleton, 60-Second Warning
Meg Campbell, The End of the World
Vivienne Plumb, The Last Day of the World
Louis Johnson, Four Poems from the Strontium Age
Michael O’Leary, Nuclear Family – A Fragment
Ruth Gilbert, Still Centre
Fleur Adcock, Last Song
Rob Jackaman, from Lee: A Science Fiction Poem
Marilyn Duckworth, Thin Air
Fiona Kidman, An aftermath
Kevin Ireland, Instructions About Global Warming

Altered States

Iain Sharp, Karen Carpenter Calls Interplanetary Craft
Gordon Challis, The Thermostatic Man
Trevor Reeves, they’re keeping tabs
Mary Cresswell, Metastasis
Simon Williamson, Japan 2030
Tony Beyer, Kron
Louis Johnson, Love Among the Daleks
Seán McMahon, planet one
Janis Freegard, Beside the Laughing Kitchen
Thomas Mitchell, Rituals
Alan Brunton, Vis Imaginitiva
Harvey McQueen, After the Disaster
Jenny Argante, Space Age Lover
Chris Else, Hypnogogia
James Norcliffe, the ascent
Fleur Adcock, from "Gas"

ET

Vivienne Plumb, Signs of Activity
Michael Morrissey, UFOs in Autumn
Andrew Fagan, A Spaceship Has Landed Near Nuhaka
Dana Bryce, Dreams of Alien Love
Tracie McBride, Contact
Cliff Fell, In Truth or Consequences
Nelson Wattie, The Art of Translation
Phil Kawana, This machine kills aliens
Michael Morrissey, Are the Andromedans Like Us
Mark Pirie, Dan and His Amazing Cat
James Dignan, Great Minds
Cath Randle, The Purple fantastic, feels like elastic, spangled and plastic ray gun
Jane Matheson, An Alien’s Notes on first seeing a prunus-plum tree
Harvey McQueen, Return
Owen Marshall, Awakening
Peter Bland, An Old Man and Science Fiction

When Worlds Collide

Katherine Liddy, Crab Nebula
Anna Jackson, Death Star
Stephen Oliver, Manned Mission to the Green Planet
Hilaire Kirkland, Three Poems
Michael O’Leary, Hey man, Wow! [Jimi Hendrix]
Robin Fry, Lift-off
Tim Jones, Touchdown
Tim Jones, The First Artist on Mars
Puri Alvarez, Saturn’s Rings
Robert Sullivan, from Star Waka
Chris Pigott, 'We’re thinking of going into space'
Mark Pirie, Liam Going
Iain Britton, Departing Takaparawha
Bill Sewell, The Imaginary Voyage
Rachel Bush, Voyagers
Stephen Oliver, Letter to an Astronomer

The Final Frontier

Helen Rickerby, Tabloid Headlines
Sue Wootton, the verdigris critic
Richard von Sturmer, from "Mill Pond Poems"
Brian Turner, Earth Star
Gary Forrester, The Thirst That Can Never Be Slaked
David Kārena-Holmes, Your Being
John Dolan, In Which I Materialize, Horribly Maimed, in the Transporter Room of the Enterprise
Mark Pirie, The Rescue Mission
Tze Ming Mok, Lament of the imperfect copy of Ensign Harry Kim
Nic Hill, Somewhere Else
Tim Jones, The stars, Natasha
Mike Webber, My Personal Universe
Bill Sewell, Space & Time

5 comments:

Johanna said...

hi Tim - congratulations. That looks like a must read, and I confess (slightly embarassedly) I am not a huge reader of poetry.

Tim Jones said...

No need to be embarrassed, Johanna! Poetry is very much an acquired taste - it's a really interesting question why that is the case; I've heard several people say that school put them off poetry, but it was exposure to poetry at high school that first got me interested in it.

Johanna said...

Thanks! For me it is that poetry has a kind of mystique surrounding it - and I feel like it's something I 'can't do'. I do enjoy it when I actually read it though. (Despite often feeling like I don't have the tools to fully appreciate it.)

I read a great book a while ago - 'The Sounds of Poetry' by Robert Pinsky which helped a little with demystification. (Would recommend to anyone who feels like I do.) I think I should read it again.

Tim Jones said...

Joanna Preston talked about books that help in poetry appreciation in a recent post in her blog - notably a couple by Ruth Padel: see http://jopre.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/ruth-padel-oxford-professor-of-poetry/

Johanna Knox said...

Thanks for that link - I'll try and get hold of those Ruth Kadel books. They look excellent.