THE CENTRAL STATION OF ALL EVENTS
By:
September 25, 2026
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 central station of all events,
a muddle of plugs, cranks, and knobs.
Push this
and the worlds harden in sloth.
Pull this
they spin quicker and more sharply.
“Spin,” they request
“so that the world will die out.
What’s it to them?
Flood the fields with blood?”
I laugh at their fervor.
“It makes no difference to me!
Let ’em flood them,
to heck with it!”
— Excerpt from “Mayakovsky in Heaven,” a section of the long poem “A Man” (w. 1916, p. 1918). Translated by Gary Wiggins. Found in The Ardis Anthology of Russian Futurism (Ellendea Proffer and Carl R. Proffer, eds.).
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.