IMPRESSIONS OF AN EARLY SUMMER NIGHT
By:
November 16, 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.
(May 1922, the time of the warlords)
Sunset bequeaths a troubling night.
The poet forces night to give up its secrets:
Dew scatters beneath the sky’s purple vault;
the poet thinks: beads to be strung for the chests of the dead.
An icy wind rakes the desiccated hair of a starving willow.
Lamplight reflected in a pond twists like a snake.
Hanging mid-mountain, a horribly crippled cypress
stiffly shakes its black, skinny fists, challenges air.
The frogs haven’t slept. Shouldn’t they be tired?
They croak the swamp’s battle hymns even louder.
All those village dogs bark with such agony.
Why can’t they break the courage of the thieves?
A dragon chews fire, spits smoke, claws up an iron ladder.
An army train lugs its war cargo, screams as if alive.
The night watch clangs his bronze-tongued, stone bell,
tells everyone, “Relax, go back to sleep.” And they believe it!
Hey God! Can’t you see this degraded universe?
Can’t you feel its chill? Hey, Benevolent God!
— In 1922, Wen Yiduo traveled to the United States to study fine arts and literature at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was during this time that his first collection of poetry, Hongzhu (紅燭, “Red Candle”), was published. “Impressions of an Early Summer Night” was written in May 1922. It was published as part of his second volume of poetry, Dead Water, which was released in 1928.
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.