Is
there a use for poetry in space?
Can the
language of apogee, perigee, declination, right ascension, thrust
vectors, newtonian mechanics and lagrangian points harbour those for
whom words are a means to an artistic end? And not a means of
requesting more oxygen be let into somewhere from a valve to ensure
the survival of pocket humanity against the vast all but emptiness of
space.
Space
loves capital punishment, and is the harshest of hanging judges. Who
can need beautiful wordsmiths where a single mistake of prosaic human
or engineering frailty results in certain death.
Everything
is checklist, double checklist, instruction manual and zero gravity
suction lavatory. The incredible Commander Hadfield took beautiful
photographs and sang a little Bowie, but if he had started declaiming
Homer while bowing on a lyre, his fellow astronauts would have
bundled him out of the airlock faster than you can say “tin can”.
Yet,
when humanity does colonise the stars and planets, the arts will have
to play a part. A society will surely go mad without them, without an
outlet to perform and express. The all encompassing sterility of
space must have an antidote; steel domes and plastic furniture won't
be enough.
And so,
in addition to the square jawed heroes, science nerds, brilliant
women, engineers, doctors and folk who's hair looks good in zero
gravity, so there will need to stained trouser artists, dusty
sculptors, and lank haired writers in tweed jackets with elbow
patches. And the poets, space berets and polo necks, astro beatniks,
will have to go to.
It
seems strange to think of it, but it is true. Mars needs poets.
Copyright Bloody Mulberry 05.04.14
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