Space Poems

Product Information

All right, everybody go out there look up the night sky and think about surge protectors. Thank you goodnight. Exploring the mysteries of space has been a source of inspiration for poets for centuries, from the earliest oral traditions to modern-day writers. Julie Swardstad Johnson and Christopher Cokinos of the University of Arizona are the editors of Beyond Earth's Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight. One more poem is still ahead. I don't think Bruce is going to win the Nobel with it but you never know. Blast off into the unknown and discover a galaxy of poems with Pie Corbett... The Rubbish Tip Alien

I think as we were putting this book together too, something we talked about was the importance of having all of these different perspectives. We weren't looking to have only poems that were kind of coming from a really positive direction. And I think that's one of the important things that this collection offers and that poetry kind of offers to us. I mentioned earlier that I feel like poems are good at letting us look at something from multiple angles all at the same time. And I think that in that sense with this book, we hope that it kind of encourages some critical reflection and not in a way that takes away from our excitement about space flight but that can really make us ask good questions and work towards the best that we can do. I want to talk about how this came to be. Julie, I read and it's in the preface actually, that this came out of an exhibit that you curated at the University of Arizona: Poetry Center. Tell us about this genesis. I love that. I think that would be great. Let's get the vaccine, let's go get past COVID and have a spring on earth again be how spring on earth is supposed to be and we'll do it.

Actions for selected content:

I cannot resist the segue that you have opened up with those comments. So I'm going to hold off yet again on talking about the other contributor to the book and play one more of these. It's from our other reader who has been up there. Epigram – Epigrams are short and witty poems that are sometimes a couplet or quatrain (four-line stanza), but can be just a single line. They can be satirical and are often powerful statements with funny endings. Sometimes, the best way to explore the mysteries of space is through laughter. Here are some interesting poems about space about the cosmos that are sure to make you smile. 1. A Ride into Space They are largely Americans, not entirely, I mean, we're going to hear one by Pablo Neruda before too long, there is tremendous diversity among them though. You mentioned that there are so many more of these that it sounded like maybe there might be room for a second volume with more of a global focus of down the line?

This short poem is almost actively ‘unpoetical’ in its imagery, and offers a fresh look at the moon. We have often found poets praising the beauty of the sunset, but what about the setting of the moon? The image of moon sand in the second line almost convinces us that moondust has fallen to earth and is there in the canal. And how nice that we were able to include Linda Spilker the project scientist for the close of that mission or actually many years of that mission through the close of it. But the science is still rolling in as we saw just recently with those newly processed images from Enceladus of the tiger stripes.To look at the night sky is to look into the past: we are looking at stars, not as they are now, but as they were thousands, perhaps even millions of years ago. MacNeice’s ‘Star-Gazer’ thinks bigger than man’s three-score-and-ten, reflecting on the fact that some of the stars now bursting into life will never be seen by the poet, because they are so far away their light will only reach earth a long, long time in the future.

Happy and serene, they believe eagerly; their soul is the deep and sudden brightness with which they burn the summit of the loftiest problems; and to know the world, they but scrutinize themselves. Stars burn, grass grows, men breathe: as a man finding treasure says ‘Ah!’ but the treasure’s the essence; An interesting way into the topic might be to leave a message from an alien in the classroom – scrawled on a screen, hidden in a container or even a large poster pinned on the classroom door. Soon your class will be buzzing with conspiracy theories. Space KS2 resourceElegy – An elegy is a poem of a serious, somber, sad or reflective nature, often a lament for the dead. I think so too Matt. I would say it's a form of translation really. It's a form of communicating from one realm, one kind of discourse to another. It creates a sense of participation and community. Listen, we have nine different poems to hear all from the collection, of course, I think we ought to go ahead and get to one of those. And since I've just mentioned our boss at The Planetary Society, the CEO, let's start with his reading. And it feels so fitting to end there too because Apollo 8 is so famous for that Earthrise image. And this book has really focused outward thinking about imagining out across the universe, across our solar system but a key component of this book as well is what being in space gives us the perspective about Earth. The ability to see our fragility, our smallness, also the value, the importance, the sweetness of life on Earth. And so to hear that poem and to also think about her in that little domestic space reading that to us really fills out.

Rhyming couplet – A rhyming couplet is a pair of lines with the same meter, or syllabic rhythm, that end in a rhyme. A rhyming couplet poem can have as many pairs of lines as the writer wishes but must have at least one pair. Acrostic – An acrostic poem is one in which a word or phrase is spelled out vertically using a letter from each line. Typically, an acrostic will use the first letter of each line to spell a vertical word or phrase. More advanced acrostics use the last letter of each line or a letter in the middle of the line to spell the vertical word or phrase. I think that's what we're trying to get at in that section of the preface that, what Whitman saying about going out and being in the mystical moist night air we agree with that sense of looking up to the sky kind of seeing and experiencing what we can see and what we can imagine our way into. But that also, like you said Matt, the work of scientists, the charts and the numbers are also really important, that's the fact-based part, giving us the information to then really imagine, even beyond that. If you’re supporting your child’s learning at home, you can also do the reading comprehension activity together! We’ve also included a handy answer sheet so you can mark your child’s responses.Yes, absolutely. And I listened to the recent episode Bidding Farewell to Emily, she's been a constant, I think for you for a long time and so we're wishing her all the best in the new endeavors.