h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Stargazing - A38134226
Author: minorVogonpoet - U3099090

This is as near as I've got to writing a poem that explores a scientific theme.

I enjoyed that. I wouldn't have thought it followed a scientific theme but for your comment here on posting it though. Wonder if it's just my bias or partly yours that the jewelled spirals seem far more important than the mirrors and adjustments?


I think there's potential here for a nice contrast between scientific set up and poetical vision - if the science part was ramped up and filled with scientific terms and jargon.

You wrote about telescopes and night skies once before - to do with a small French village getting (briefly) street lighting.

Thanks, Llwaz.

Although the principle of the telescope is straightforward enough, the rest of the technology loses me rather!

Yes, there is a link between this poem and my 'Lights of St Therese' story. Well spotted! Maybe I'll write the true story of the place I've called St Therese some time.

He explains the theory, makes it simple:
two mirrors in a tube, one curved, the other angled.
Light descends, is reflected, redirected
an eyepiece magnifies the image.

He stands a tripod, sets his telescope
on an equatorial mount, as stars emerge
and darkness deepens in the tangled garden.
He makes adjustments: latitude, date and time
aligns upon Polaris high above the barn.

He chooses constellations, focuses on galaxies.
I see a tiny speck become a jewelled spiral
know it’s home to billions of sun-like stars
and gaze in silent contemplation.



Hmmm, not sure what to make of this mVp I like poetry that does away with as many conjunctives as possible. To my eye this reads as prose poetry and the line breaks seem superfluous .

The "tangled garden" is a good allusion and the final line reads well.

Cheers.

So far I haven't got the hang of what makes a good poem. I can only say whether I like it or don't like it. This one I like. Read aloud it sounds pleasing and I can see it all as you describe.

Someone recently gave me a poetry book called Mount Clutter by Sarah Lindsay and all the ones I've read upto now are about things archaeological and anthropological. Science made poetic. It works very well.

Thanks, Tibley. Perhaps I should look for that poetry book.

Thanks, Keith. I know what you mean. I generally go through my poems and take out words that don't seem to add much, including articles and prepositions. Maybe I didn't do enough pruning here. I might have another look at it.

All I've done to this is simplify the second line.

An attempt to change it more radically just made it worse, I think!

Still looks good to me.

I'd recommend Mount Clutter. My two special favourites so far (haven't read them all yet so my favourites order might get shuffled around later) are "Olduvai Gorge Thorn Tree" and "Mount Clutter". Even though I haven't read all the poems in the book yet, I've read those two over and over. The Gorge one has tears streaming down my cheeks for reasons I couldn't begin to explain.

That's made it smoother mVp, I like the way that first stanza reads now.



If I can just digress for one moment mVp; a little while back I was talking to you and dmitri about some poetry I'd done and I was asking how far do you go in explaining it to the reader if you think that they might not 'get it'.
I have them in my journal now. Would I be better posting them here do you think, rather than wait for someone to drop by?

Keith, I would recommend posting the poems in the AWW. Someone's sure to look and comment.

I don't know how many people read other researchers' journals.