Strangeness is where you find it.
Well, I finally made it. This past Monday, we stood in the shadow of the Moon for the first time, sans clouds (that was the case in 2017, another story). Turns out, instead of traveling, I simply could’ve stayed in my hometown of Mapleton, Maine to see a total eclipse of the Sun.
What really made things exciting, though, is how the fickle April North American weather decided to flip-flop things. Suddenly, Texas skies looked less clear, and northern Maine became the epicenter of the clear sky forecast. To quote Heinlein, “climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.”
So, what does all of this have to do with poetry? Well, the singular overreaching thought that always occurs to me when watching an astronomical event as improbable as an eclipse is that there’s weirdness everywhere, if we only know to look for it. These days, we know where and when to look for a total solar eclipse, and we watch and wait as the slow partial phases occur… but for most of history, nothing seemed askew in the sky until totality abruptly threw the celestial dimmer switch.
And yes, the lead up to the event prompted some poetry from me, in perhaps the strangest way possible. I use What3Words for precise 3×3 metre positioning (often better than smartphone GPS), handy for predicting the timing for an event like an eclipse from my observing site. The words for my site came up as (you can’t make this up) blames.eclipses.fixated///
That’s almost a poem right there.
Fixated on totality
Blames eclipses
For guiding future obsessive travel plans
Star*Line 47.2 is also chock full of everyday weirdness in speculative poetry. The bi-monthly magazine covers long and short form poems of all styles and types, from science fiction to horror to fantasy.
Some of my favorites from Star*Line 47.2 include:
Circle of Dark by Jason P. Burnham
In the beginning, there was darkness
terrifying some
but nowhere near as ghastly as the light
spreading malignantly….
Drought Season by Silvatiicus Riddle
Lost in a dark wood
Branches creak, twigs snap, leaves crunch
Rainless roots seek blood.
Untitled by Ann K. Schwader
white Christmas
and ever since
asteroid winter
All very eclipse appropriate (or very least apocalyptic) poems, for sure. It seems that these days, every science fiction fantasy tale includes at least one fictional world with a doom-spangled the sky in the throes of an eternal eclipse… this almost seems to taunt the astronomers in the crowd, making them wonder how that could actually happen.
All celestial thoughts to consider, as we fixate on heading to the next total solar eclipse crossing northern Spain in August 2026. We’ve said it before, but it’s always worth reiterating; while nearly everyone watches television and movies and may still read an occasional book once we’re out of school, poetry is the one form of art and media we all probably do not consume enough of. Be sure to read the latest issue of Star*line, and contemplate the weirdness of the everyday world, both in poetry and verse, and the sky above.
SPECPO 