FACTORY STREET BY DAY
By:
October 18, 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.
Nothing but walls. Without grass and glass
the street moves down the motley belt
of façades. No trolley track hums.
Always the pavement glistens water-wet.
If someone brushes against you, his gaze
coldly cuts you
to the quick; his hard steps hew
fire from the steep fence, tower-high,
even his short breathing makes clenched
clouds.
No penitentiary cell clamps
in ice all thinking as firmly as this walking
between walls that look only at each other.
Whether you wear royal purple or
hairshirt —:
always pressing down with gigantic
heaviness
is God’s anathema: clockless shift.
— The poem is dated 1911. Also appears in the 1919 expressionist anthology Menschheitsdämmerung. Translation from the 1994 edition.
A “clockless shift” was a hallmark of the chaotic factory life that prevailed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before labor reforms began to take hold. In these settings, irregular hours were standard. Workers labored for long, grueling days — often 10 to 14 hours — on a six-day workweek. The idea of an eight-hour day was a radical demand pursued by labor unions at the time.
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.