Prismatica: Science Fiction Poetry Spanning the Spectrum

by Elizabeth Barrette

This collection highlights Elizabeth's work, holding it up to the light from multiple angles. It proves her a master of form, from the common ballad and well-known sonnet to the intricate villanelle and deceptively simple prose poem. It demonstrates her mastery of imagery, like the chaplain in "The Poltergeist of Polaris," who says, "My rosary of habitable planets / Clacked around my spacesuit, / Spiral galaxy dangling from / The end." You will find here all the classic tropes science If this goes on, in "Countdown"; if only we could, in "A Spacer's Lullaby"; and yes, we will, in "Judas Rising." You will also find the universal themes of the indomitable will, in "Resolutions"; love of money is the root of all evil, in "The String of Beads"; and love, showing different aspects in "Star Orphan" and "Not For Me." Each poem in this collection can stand alone. But they also seem, at times, to be paired - sometimes next to each other, sometimes separated by distance but entangled like paired quarks, where reading one changes the meaning of another. Some of the pairs the I found include "Space Evaders" and "The Clasping Of Hands," "Flying With Old Friends" and "Uprising," and "What Radiant Light" and "Theoretical Properties." I have no doubt that you will find different pairs, because the observation depends as much upon the observer as upon the observed. -Janet D. Miles, CPS/CAP

110 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2010

About the author

Elizabeth Barrette lives in Illinois with her partner, Doug. An avid wordsmith, she works as a writer and editor, doing poetry, articles, essays, reviews, interviews, short stories, and more. Her main fields include speculative fiction, gender studies, environmental/social issues, and alternative spirituality. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Rhetoric with a Women’s Studies minor from the English Department at the University of Illinois.

Her wordsmithing work has taken many forms. She wrote the articles "Balancing Powers" in Communities, “Anthimeria: Verbing Weirds Language” in Sol Magazine, and "Appreciating Speculative Poetry" and "Do Women and Men Really Write Differently?" in Internet Review of Science Fiction. Honors include winning the Sol Magazine Poet Laureate Competition (2003), Left Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition (2009), Dwarf Stars Award (2010), and Rose & Bay Award: Poetry (2010); plus six poems nominated for the Rhysling Award (2005, 2007, 2010). Elizabeth Barrette served as Managing Editor of PanGaia for eight years and Dean of Studies at the Grey School of Wizardry for four years. She currently sits on the canon board for Torn World. She has edited over a dozen books including novels, short story collections, and nonfiction.

She has published hundreds of poems, dozens of articles, and dozens of short stories. Her writing has appeared in numerous periodicals including Apex, The Blessed Bee, Capper’s, Cicada, CIRCLE, Doorways, Eggplant Library, EMG-zine, Five Feathers, Fortress, Green Prints, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Horror Writers Association Newsletter, the Llewellyn annuals, The Lorelei Signal, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Mytholog, Nature’s Song, Noneuclidean Café, Passion for Poetry, SageWoman, Sol Magazine, Strong Verse, and the Wiccan/Pagan Times. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies The 2010 Rhysling Anthology, Companion for the Apprentice Wizard, [Book: Creative Community Collected Comics Pages], Genderflex, The Goddess in Each of Us, The Impossible Will Take A Little While, and Pagan Muse Short Fiction Anthology Volume 2.

Elizabeth Barrette supports small press and electronic publication, crowdfunding, and communal living. She hosts a monthly Poetry Fishbowl on her LiveJournal, The Wordsmith’s Forge. She enjoys presenting panels and workshops at science fiction conventions, Pagan festivals, and other events. Her favorite pastimes include gardening for wildlife, photography, and studying obscure languages.

Reviews

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prismatica is the other of Elizabeth Barrette's poetry collections I've read this year, and of the two, this is the one I prefer. Since I'm not a regular reader of poetry, this collection's being SF-themed made it quite a bit more accessible to me than the other collection, From Nature's Patient Hands.

As with the other collection, I found in general that Ms. Barrette had a lovely way with a word. Several of the poems in this collection stood out for me as examples of what I always want a poem to do--i.e., take a concept and coalesce it into a few short lines of verse. Moreover, the concepts in question were excellent SF-themed ones.

There are too many poems here for me to talk about them all, but some of my favorites included:

"One Ship Tall" - The opening poem in the collection, about FTL flight

"Star Orphan" - About the finding of a single young survivor on the ruin of an alien planet

"Resolutions" - About the path of a woman's lifelong determination to reach the stars

"lush rain" - About a rainstorm not quite what you might expect

"From 'Aliens' to 'Zooming'" - An alphabetical exploration of a clever alien emissary to Earth

"Crib Notes" - A pithy little suggestion about why, exactly, we haven't had any confirmed alien visits to Earth yet

So all in all, not my normal reading, but nice to have explored nonetheless. If you like SF-themed poetry, you should check this out. Four stars.

[Grace Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly incredible read! I very much enjoyed being transported into a world where interplanetary realities and fantasies meet and gaining a new perspective of what appear to us as everyday, ordinary concepts. For example, in one poem in particular, "colors" (perceived as intangible concepts to humans) gain personalities and we get an inside look of how "colors" might act if they were alive. Full of humor, imagination, and compelling imagery and story-telling, this is a must-read for any poetry lover! <3 I give this 5 stars. :)