poetry

Rare Handwritten Copy of Famous Shakespeare Sonnet Found in Oxford Library

The recently discovered copy of Sonnet 116 "reads as a political love song" during England's Civil Wars, according to the professor who found it.

Lush Animation Brings This Soulful Poem to Life

Good animation can make tiny details sing. It can invest the most simple objects with life and spirit, expanding them into entire worlds. Like, say, a toothbrush. In this animated version of a poem by creator Anna Akana, “The Moment I Threw Your Toothbrush Away,” lush, expressive animation brings her words to life and places…

Did a Poem About a Horrific Volcanic Eruption Destroy the Norse Gods of Iceland?

New research connects a powerful volcanic eruption—and a medieval poem that conjured memories of the dreaded event—to Iceland’s conversion to Christianity. At the turn of the 11th century, Iceland’s settlers formally replaced Odin, Thor, and Freya with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. A new paper published in Climatic Change suggests memories of the Eldgjá lava flood—the…

The Endless Fountain of Stephen King Adaptations Continues to Flow With The Bone Church

Between the huge success of It and the growing anticipation ahead of the Hulu series Castle Rock, it’s safe to say that Stephen King Adaptation Fever is still in full force. Hot on the heels of the Doctor Sleep movie announcement comes news of another proposed King-inspired television show: The Bone Church. This project is…

Martian Sand Is Swallowing the Phoenix Lander and Nothing Beside Remains

The Phoenix Lander detected water on Mars during its three-month mission in 2008, and now it is being swallowed by the planet’s dust. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped the above two images, one in 2008 and the other in December of 2017. If Percy Bysshe Shelley…

Russell T Davies Has Changed the Fate of a Doctor Who Character Killed Off Years Ago… With a Poem

Nine years ago, ex-Prime Minister Harriet Jones gave her life to alert the Doctor to a Dalek invasion of Earth in the Doctor Who season four finale “The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End.” But it turns out she didn’t actually die, as everyone believed, because former Who showrunner Russell T Davies has revealed a new poetry collection…

This Gorgeously Animated Neil Gaiman Poem Examines a Disturbingly Modern Problem

The Visible Poetry Project aims to make poetry more accessible by lifting words off the page and transforming them into short films. The colorful Hate for Sale, from Dutch animator Anna Eijsbouts, is from an original poem about the seductive power of hate by Neil Gaiman. It’s read in perfectly droll tones by Peter Kenny.…

70-Year-Old Tolkien Poem To Be Republished, Will Probably Make You Cry

Just because J.R.R. Tolkien has been dead since 1973 doesn’t mean he can’t still continue to publish work. So of course, after two of his poems were found earlier this year, we’re set to get another poem. According to The Guardian, “The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun,” which was published in 1945 in the literary…

Computers Suck at Poetry

A poetic Turing test was held at Dartmouth yesterday to pit artificial intelligence against human poets, AP reported. Good news: the computers lost. Judges could easily tell the difference between robot-written sonnets. One of the judges, Harvard English professor and New Yorker contributor Louis Menand, cited syntactical oddities and “uses of language that were just…

Two Previously Unknown J.R.R. Tolkien Poems Have Been Found

The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien contributed two poems to a school magazine in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, back when he was an Oxford don. One is an early version of a poem that later appeared in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (pictured above), while the other is a Christmas poem, set in a landscape not unlike Middle…

Let China Miéville Plan Your Week in Weird Entertainment

Now that the wonderfully weird author China Miéville has a new book out—with another one coming later this year!—he’s doing some press. And there’s a feature in the Guardian where he recommends some things he’s been watching, reading, and listening to lately. These include Crumbs, a post-apocalyptic film in which “a dilapidated spaceship hangs above…

This poem about science fiction is a brilliant look at genres, and what it’s like to imagine how the world could be different. And several phrases from Anne Boyer’s “Science Fiction”will be stuck in my head for ages. It’s short—go read it!

Sing Muse and Bring Us Your Best Science Poetry

Left brain, right brain, BS! Today we are uniting the arts and the sciences, which means that we want your best science-based poetry. Haiku, sonnet, free verse—even the lowly limerick. All are welcome. Here’s an attempt of my very own: Water seems simple But drink too much, too quickly And get water drunk. Contact the…

Video: How the poetry of beautiful films is in the details

The world view changing Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting takes a deep dive into the films of Lynne Ramsay, a director whose work I’m mostly unfamiliar with, and explains how the poetry of a film isn’t in the plot but in the details. Like with most of Zhou’s videos, I walked away learning…

Great News! Jo Walton Is Writing Sonnets About Godzilla!

There are so many ways to celebrate the grandeur of the King of Monsters. But author Jo Walton may have just found the best possible way. Walton was asked, as part of a charity auction at Vericon, to write a sonnet on the theme of “Godzilla vs. Shakespeare.” But she had so much fun with…

io9 Newsstand: The Best Stories & Poems from March 29 – April 4

Do you read speculative poetry? Wait, before you answer that, let me ask: do you read poetry? April is National Poetry Month, after all. And if you’re not a regular poem reader you’ll probably read at least one sometime this month. I am guilty of the crime of neglecting poetry most of the year. There…

They’re Making A Beowulf TV Show, Naked Angelina Jolie Not Included

Here’s your new Beowulf: Kieran Bew (Da Vinci’s Demons) has been cast as the Medieval hero, who fights a monster during the Dark Ages. He’ll star in ITV’s TV series based on the classic epic poem. Also starring in the British Beowulf series: William Hurt (Humans), Joanne Whalley (Wolf Hall), Ed Speelers (Downton Abbey) and…

Archy And Mehitabel Deserve To Be Listed Among Fantasy’s Best Characters

When people list the most important fantasy characters of all time, they often leave out a few classics that just happen to be off the beaten track. Like Asterix. But also, Archy and Mehitabel, the cockroach and alley cat who captured the imaginations of a whole generation. Newspaper columnist Don Marquis came up with Archy…

How Did Edgar Allan Poe Manage To Describe The Big Bang In 1848?

They mocked when Edgar Allan Poe published his prose poem “Eureka” in his last year of life, describing how the universe had begun with a single “primordial particle” that exploded outwards in “one instantaneous flash.” But 80 years later, cosmologists started realizing that Poe had been on to something. There’s a new article about Poe…

This Ode To Batman From A Starlog Contest Winner Is Poetic Genius

The team over Comics Alliance dug through old copies of Starlog Magazine recently (as you do) and came across the best piece of Batman poetry since… well, ever. The Dark Knight has inspired many creatives over the years, but perhaps never so strangely brilliant as this. Header image via Comics Alliance. Back in 1988, Starlog…