Planet Four Is My Home
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davidkmPatrice, Helen, 2011, A Woman of Mars, PS Publishing, Stanza Press, £14.99UK, $25.00AUD,$25.00US, hardcover, http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/stanza-poetry-6-a-woman-of-mars-signed-hc-by-helen-patrice-416-p.asp
The 34 poems in this book tell the story of, and are from the point of view of, an early homesteader on Mars. The poems were written as a sort of free-verse diary by the viewpoint character.
Our story begins with the protagonist (who never names herself) a teenager on Earth. The first poem, which has no title, refers to "he" as the one who made her realize that her future lay in the stars, rather than here on Earth. “He" is presumably the boy she falls in love with and later marries.This poem introduces without explanation the two main themes of the book: her relationship with her man and, more importantly, her relationship with the planet Mars.
Only from within his eyes,
did I see clear
for the first time,
a future of steel and stars.
At the age of 15 she goes to see a young child-cosmonaut and his spacecraft, and this is when we find out that the protagonist is Australian. Patrice uses the word "spruiker." I rarely come across a term I don't know, but this definitely stumped me. It is listed as "archaic Australian slang" in one online dictionary. The meaning is obvious from context, so I won't explain it here. Read the book (or, look it up like I did). At any rate, their eyes meet, and she knows.
I had one moment of doubt -
surely I was too young at fifteen,
he too old at twenty-six.
As the hologram show glittered,
he slid through the audience,
answering questions, smiling false
to all but me.
The book has a personal tone throughout. I love this. It is easy to read this book and believe that it was all written by a young homesteader trying to make her way in a very demanding place. My chief complaint is that many of the poems are too short. That may sound odd coming from me; I'm sure a lot of what I write seems too short. This might be a case of do what I say, not what I do. There are times when brevity is not really called for. For example, the third poem deals with the protagonist's relationship with her mother. Mother doesn't want her daughter to leave. (Her only daughter? We don't know, because Patrice hasn't told us.) Of course the mother who is staying behind is upset. Our protagonist is homesteading Mars in the same way that European settlers colonized North America in the 17th century. In the same way that my grandparents traveled to New York City from Europe in steerage in the early 20th century. They never went back home to visit. Nevertheless, Mother's reaction is unexpectedly violent. Unexpected to the reader, anyway, and it is not explained. I think the collection would be stronger for little more information here. The only other thing we have by way of explanation of the mother-daughter relationship is brief and remote. We have our protagonist's reaction to a batch of e-mail messages she receives when orbiting Mars at the end of the journey.
I recalled the hard heat of her hands
as she beat me from her house.
We never spoke voice to voice again,
the cold trench of space separating us.
Reconciliation? No opportunity for that. And maybe I am wrong, maybe we don't need to know more. Patrice certainly packs a punch with just a few words, and maybe the explanation I'm wishing for would be too much icing on the cake.
The vast majority of the book is about life on Mars: arrival, getting used to the differences between Mars and Earth, their sometimes dangerous efforts to make Mars feel like Home, and then the task of living there, making a whole life in a very strange place. Eventually, the colonists become Martians, no longer displaced earthlings who are all too frequently looking back to Earth. They create their own society, where meat grows on trees, where it no longer seems peculiar that you can't go outside unprotected, but some things from old Earth are still with them.
Our first murder
was solved quickly.
We are a frontier city,
and nothing is wasted.
Victim and murderer,
both mulched down
for the good of the soil
In the end, a whole life is presented here. It is only the beginning of human life on Mars, but "A Woman of Mars" covers not only the life of the protagonist, but colonial Mars itself. By the end of the book Mars has changed as much as our protagonist has. Emigrating to an established colony, or being born there, is not the same as hacking almost everything you have out of barren red dirt.
I liked this book. I like Patrice's voice; she brings a fresh perspective to a subject that science fiction writers have explored for generations. What it reminds me of most is Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. I think you should buy it.
The 34 poems in this book tell the story of, and are from the point of view of, an early homesteader on Mars. The poems were written as a sort of free-verse diary by the viewpoint character.
Our story begins with the protagonist (who never names herself) a teenager on Earth. The first poem, which has no title, refers to "he" as the one who made her realize that her future lay in the stars, rather than here on Earth. “He" is presumably the boy she falls in love with and later marries.This poem introduces without explanation the two main themes of the book: her relationship with her man and, more importantly, her relationship with the planet Mars.
Only from within his eyes,
did I see clear
for the first time,
a future of steel and stars.
At the age of 15 she goes to see a young child-cosmonaut and his spacecraft, and this is when we find out that the protagonist is Australian. Patrice uses the word "spruiker." I rarely come across a term I don't know, but this definitely stumped me. It is listed as "archaic Australian slang" in one online dictionary. The meaning is obvious from context, so I won't explain it here. Read the book (or, look it up like I did). At any rate, their eyes meet, and she knows.
I had one moment of doubt -
surely I was too young at fifteen,
he too old at twenty-six.
As the hologram show glittered,
he slid through the audience,
answering questions, smiling false
to all but me.
The book has a personal tone throughout. I love this. It is easy to read this book and believe that it was all written by a young homesteader trying to make her way in a very demanding place. My chief complaint is that many of the poems are too short. That may sound odd coming from me; I'm sure a lot of what I write seems too short. This might be a case of do what I say, not what I do. There are times when brevity is not really called for. For example, the third poem deals with the protagonist's relationship with her mother. Mother doesn't want her daughter to leave. (Her only daughter? We don't know, because Patrice hasn't told us.) Of course the mother who is staying behind is upset. Our protagonist is homesteading Mars in the same way that European settlers colonized North America in the 17th century. In the same way that my grandparents traveled to New York City from Europe in steerage in the early 20th century. They never went back home to visit. Nevertheless, Mother's reaction is unexpectedly violent. Unexpected to the reader, anyway, and it is not explained. I think the collection would be stronger for little more information here. The only other thing we have by way of explanation of the mother-daughter relationship is brief and remote. We have our protagonist's reaction to a batch of e-mail messages she receives when orbiting Mars at the end of the journey.
I recalled the hard heat of her hands
as she beat me from her house.
We never spoke voice to voice again,
the cold trench of space separating us.
Reconciliation? No opportunity for that. And maybe I am wrong, maybe we don't need to know more. Patrice certainly packs a punch with just a few words, and maybe the explanation I'm wishing for would be too much icing on the cake.
The vast majority of the book is about life on Mars: arrival, getting used to the differences between Mars and Earth, their sometimes dangerous efforts to make Mars feel like Home, and then the task of living there, making a whole life in a very strange place. Eventually, the colonists become Martians, no longer displaced earthlings who are all too frequently looking back to Earth. They create their own society, where meat grows on trees, where it no longer seems peculiar that you can't go outside unprotected, but some things from old Earth are still with them.
Our first murder
was solved quickly.
We are a frontier city,
and nothing is wasted.
Victim and murderer,
both mulched down
for the good of the soil
In the end, a whole life is presented here. It is only the beginning of human life on Mars, but "A Woman of Mars" covers not only the life of the protagonist, but colonial Mars itself. By the end of the book Mars has changed as much as our protagonist has. Emigrating to an established colony, or being born there, is not the same as hacking almost everything you have out of barren red dirt.
I liked this book. I like Patrice's voice; she brings a fresh perspective to a subject that science fiction writers have explored for generations. What it reminds me of most is Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. I think you should buy it.
