HOT-BLAST
By:
November 9, 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.
Drunken sturm
Furious wind
Firing storm
Cyclone!
Cyclone!
Lila roaring with the wind
My chest
The shrine
Ksana!
Ksana!
Flying bird dancing with the wind
The form in my own image
Wing
Propeller,
Stalwart man of azure!
Sparks dispersing with the wind
The aerial flower of war
Swirling pollen
Southern scent
Our eternal heat!
O,
This fierce libido of wind!
This fierce libido of fire!
This fierce libido of scent!
This burning passion
Burning thoughtFor this burning stench
The earth will today
Become a flowering garden . . . . . . .
This burning passion
Burning thought
For this burning stench,
The farmer’s thin smoke
From the field to the field of white clouds . . . . . . . .
This burning passion
Burning thought
For this burning stench,
The church bell’s reverberation
To the laughing eternal lily at the bottom of the
valley . . . .
O,
I am the child of fire!
I am the child of wind!
A jester of passion!
Strike
I am the insatiable end of one’s life!
The lion in front of the stiff gate!
Strike, strike
And strike
Inside the burning fire
Atop the steel bricks!
Strike,
This is the howling world,
Maddening world,
A test site for hardened individuality!
Strike,
Hit,
To the end,
Inside the burning fire
Atop the steel bricks!
— Found in Spiral Staircase, a posthumous collection of the author’s poems translated in 2017 by Sho Sugita.
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.