THE INNOCENT EYE
By:
March 15, 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.
Potential
mirror of gentle acts
agents of factual
joy
enjoy
deft engines
but shade yourself
against electric signs
that in the night
destroy the stars
and lurid phantoms
feature on hotel stairs.
Angelicos
diatoms
of senseful surfeit —
how can man deny you?
He should employ you
whenever
he wakes in the world
out of dusty fever
and with not worm
and weevil
for whom
God grows stavesacre
but with bird and lynx
enlarge his life
with crystal lens
and furtive lust.
— from The Innocent Eye (1933), which was later incorporated with other autobiographical writings in The Contrary Experiences (1963). Described in David Goodway’s Herbert Read Reassessed as “the best ‘poem’ that Herbert Read ever wrote.” This selection is from Selected Writings of Herbert Read (1964); I believe that Allen Tate made the decisions about which parts of each long poem to excerpt.
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.