|
The Falling Star / Why Photographers Commit Suicide
|
| Edition | Our Price inc. p&p | Status |
| first edition chapbook, A5, 16pp, ISBN 0905262344, 2004 | UK only: £1.88 | in stock |
Described by its authors on their hand-written title page as "A moral tale, founded in fact", "The Falling Star" was inspired by a Bazaar For the Distressed Irish, attended by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, held in May 1847 at London's Regent Park Barracks. Its stalls presided over and patronised by 'high society', it was a kind of Live Aid of its time in response to the terrible Irish Famine. What is interesting to the historian of science fiction poetry, however, is that this gentle satire of the bazaar employs an extraterrestrial setting that prefigures the frequent SF trope of more advanced aliens rendering succour to catastrophe-devastated human survivors, and so represents an intriguing (if minor) landmark along the way to a more fully developed poetry of science fiction.
Presented in an upside-down-and-back-to-back format with a long poem by Mary Ladd, part of a sequence of narrative poems collectively titled 'On A Clear Day You Can See Jupiter'.