INSIGHT
By:
August 15, 2025
A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.
The heartfulness of moving things,
The moving heart of
The heartfulness of moving machines!
Wheels charging through,
Soaring wings,
From above the steel-processing machines
Into the City
Into the Garden
With the heartfulness of the eternally craning hand!
In unison beauty of the moving force!
In unison voices calling each other
In unison beauty of the marching figures!
Leaving one’s house
Leaving one factory
Leaving one city
With the heartfulness of perpetually pushing onwards!
The perpetually resonating sound!
The perpetually flowing light!
The perpetually fastening
Beauty of toiling onwards!
The light of daybreak penetrating through the closed door!
The voice of storm penetrating this century!
The crystal of a radial ideology!
Push onwards, towards daybreak!
Push onwards, into the storm!
Push onwards, becoming one!
Push onwards, where the target is!
Push onwards,
Reverberating crowd!
Reverberating voice!
Perpetually push onwards,
Until the hard gate opens wide!
Perpetually push onwards,
Until the wind freely blows through!
Perpetually push onwards,
Until the hearts meet as they vacillate!
— Found in Spiral Staircase (2017), a collection of the author’s poems translated by Sho Sugita. Written before his death in 1922 — I’m not exactly what year.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.