Friday, September 02, 2005

Space poetry

The UK's Poetry Society is sending a poem into outer space. You can vote for your favourite from a shortlist or submit your own suggestion. (There's one I rather like. At the moment, all the possibly future/space-exploration/wonders-of-human-accomplishment-related poems that come to mind are a little cynical for the epic task of contact with alien civilization.)

The winning poem will be announced October 6, National Poetry Day 2005, the theme of which is The Future.

The Guardian reports:
Simon Singh, the science writer, suggested the opening lines of Auguries of Innocence by William Blake: "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."

He said: "Blake captures the essence of science in his first few lines. In fact, it almost seems like the very first line should have been engraved on the side of Nasa's Stardust probe, which tried to capture grains of sand from a comet ..."


What poem would you send to outer space?

2 comments:

Suzanne said...

That would depend on the reason for sending it :)

Suzanne said...

What started out as a comment on your blog and, then, became far too long to post as such, has become a post in progress.

Thanks for the provocative post!