After You, My Dear
Dec. 12th, 2024 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidkmSneyd, Steve, 2008, Mistaking the Nature of the Posthuman, perfect-bound trade pb, Hilltop Press, 4 Nowell Place, Almondbury, Huddersfield, HD5 8PB, England, ISBN 978-0-905262-42-0, 107 p, ￡6.99/$14.
Historian of SF poetry, chronicler of global SF poetry news, prolific English SF poet whose work is well-known everywhere among genre poetry readers. That is Steve Sneyd, and any new collection from him is eagerly anticipated. Here it is, with an intriguing and disturbing cover by Gunter Wessalowski. If I counted right, there are 96 poems in this book. According to the introduction, these poems were all first published in the 21st century, not many years on, yet the book reads like a best-of high-graded compilation. There is not a dud in the lot.
The introduction, written by the author, appears to claim that the book is published as a guide to surviving the future. Works for me. Although if you use this book as a guide to survival it might just convince you to give up right now. But don't do that! At least read the book first.
The first poem is "If the doors of perception were cleansed." Here's an excerpt.
... just like today only nicer and
futuristic how it ought to be the
best of home only better smoother
cosier somehow if we didn't have
to get back jobs to go to and
Elaine's mum and the kids and anyway
Well, you get the idea. Sneyd doesn't believe in punctuation and has heard rumors of pronouns and prepositions, but does not believe they have been sighted in the wild. Somehow it's all quite understandable (albeit occasionally with a little work).
From "We are also keys to the experiment"
snakes bred russet-red for survival camouflage
in case just in case with monster multifiltered
lungs to breathe
in hindsight the russet we suspect aesthetic
and fangs megafangs manipulated into drills
to search subsurface water out that too late we learn
In this low gravity will also grow
In Sneyd's future nothing ever works like we expect or plan. And when does it ever? Maybe these cautionary tales are spot on accurate. Let me just give you a further taste of the content of this remarkable book. Open it to any page.
From "As is written in the emergency manual,"
Airless Extraterrestrial Enterprises tests our faith
will at very last possible instant as we hallucinate
flake into non-sentience save us reward such loyalty
From "Included out,"
sure beyond doubt more than half at least
the others at these dos are same as me are
not the humans they appear to be at all and
all the towers of the world I am so sure
full night on night of humans hiding from
each other...
What if, all unknowing, you take one of these androids home? Androids who can't be sure of each others' humanity. At least, with clothes on.
From "The sanctity of his mission,"
and
before
sending the virgin to her doom
who otherwise would have anyhow within
a cycle gone into ground
a crop-source-placator she
at least now will not have to
burrow down alone: a hybrid in
her belly, a tasty
extra bonus for the god or gods.
One gets the impression that what is being said is so very important the words tumble over one another in a hopeless attempt to get out before it's too late. I guess if this is a handbook of the "break glass in emergency" kind that might be true. After all, aren't we waist deep in the future already? If this book is instead a metaphor about how hopelessly stranger and more desolate we ourselves will become than most of us can imagine, nevermind what our tools or aliens will be like, then there's no hurry. Cherish your illusions. Don't read this book. Trust me, you don't want to knw what can happen to us, out there, or even right here at home. What you do want to know is, if you buy only one SF poetry book this month, or this season, Mistaking the Nature of the Posthuman should be it.
I know I'm giving what some will misconstrue as contradictory advice, but I maintain that's the best way to deal with the future. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit I was the first publisher of one or two poems in this collection.
Historian of SF poetry, chronicler of global SF poetry news, prolific English SF poet whose work is well-known everywhere among genre poetry readers. That is Steve Sneyd, and any new collection from him is eagerly anticipated. Here it is, with an intriguing and disturbing cover by Gunter Wessalowski. If I counted right, there are 96 poems in this book. According to the introduction, these poems were all first published in the 21st century, not many years on, yet the book reads like a best-of high-graded compilation. There is not a dud in the lot.
The introduction, written by the author, appears to claim that the book is published as a guide to surviving the future. Works for me. Although if you use this book as a guide to survival it might just convince you to give up right now. But don't do that! At least read the book first.
The first poem is "If the doors of perception were cleansed." Here's an excerpt.
... just like today only nicer and
futuristic how it ought to be the
best of home only better smoother
cosier somehow if we didn't have
to get back jobs to go to and
Elaine's mum and the kids and anyway
Well, you get the idea. Sneyd doesn't believe in punctuation and has heard rumors of pronouns and prepositions, but does not believe they have been sighted in the wild. Somehow it's all quite understandable (albeit occasionally with a little work).
From "We are also keys to the experiment"
snakes bred russet-red for survival camouflage
in case just in case with monster multifiltered
lungs to breathe
in hindsight the russet we suspect aesthetic
and fangs megafangs manipulated into drills
to search subsurface water out that too late we learn
In this low gravity will also grow
In Sneyd's future nothing ever works like we expect or plan. And when does it ever? Maybe these cautionary tales are spot on accurate. Let me just give you a further taste of the content of this remarkable book. Open it to any page.
From "As is written in the emergency manual,"
Airless Extraterrestrial Enterprises tests our faith
will at very last possible instant as we hallucinate
flake into non-sentience save us reward such loyalty
From "Included out,"
sure beyond doubt more than half at least
the others at these dos are same as me are
not the humans they appear to be at all and
all the towers of the world I am so sure
full night on night of humans hiding from
each other...
What if, all unknowing, you take one of these androids home? Androids who can't be sure of each others' humanity. At least, with clothes on.
From "The sanctity of his mission,"
and
before
sending the virgin to her doom
who otherwise would have anyhow within
a cycle gone into ground
a crop-source-placator she
at least now will not have to
burrow down alone: a hybrid in
her belly, a tasty
extra bonus for the god or gods.
One gets the impression that what is being said is so very important the words tumble over one another in a hopeless attempt to get out before it's too late. I guess if this is a handbook of the "break glass in emergency" kind that might be true. After all, aren't we waist deep in the future already? If this book is instead a metaphor about how hopelessly stranger and more desolate we ourselves will become than most of us can imagine, nevermind what our tools or aliens will be like, then there's no hurry. Cherish your illusions. Don't read this book. Trust me, you don't want to knw what can happen to us, out there, or even right here at home. What you do want to know is, if you buy only one SF poetry book this month, or this season, Mistaking the Nature of the Posthuman should be it.
I know I'm giving what some will misconstrue as contradictory advice, but I maintain that's the best way to deal with the future. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit I was the first publisher of one or two poems in this collection.
