In August: “Bruce Boston’s Dark Roads”
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This month’s Poetry Page shines a spotlight on Bruce Boston. His collection, Dark Roads, was nominated for the Stoker this year.
Bruce’s poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of publications, including Asimov’s SF, Amazing Stories, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, The Pedestal Magazine, The Twilight Zone Magazine, Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase.
His poetry has received the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov’s Readers’ Award, the Rhysling Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, the Balticon Poetry Award, and the Grandmaster Award of the SFPA. His fiction has received a Pushcart Prize and twice been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award (novel, short story).
Dark Roads by Bruce Boston
HWA: What were your first impressions after hearing of the Stoker nomination? What is the impact and import of the nomination?
BB: I was very pleased but not particularly surprised. Dark Roads received more Stoker recommendations than any other poetry book this year. Also, I think it’s one of the best, probably the best, dark poetry collection I’ve published. Not sure exactly what you mean by import. I received lots of congratulations from both HWA members and other friends, which was very nice. Dark Roads has been selling slowly but steadily, and the Stoker Final Ballot did not lead to any surge in sales. I think a sales response is more often the case with novels or story collections.
HWA: In regards to Dark Roads in particular, the collection highlights selected long poems over a period of over forty years of a storied career as a poet, so I’d love to peek into the selection process a little. In hindsight, is there a poem you wish had made the cut?
BB: I compiled the book very gradually with an eye to both content and length, and eventually I was satisfied with the result. There were eight poems and prose poems that came close but were not included in the trade paper editions. However, those are included in the signed limited hardcover edition. So I had it both ways.
HWA:Did you have any specific criteria in mind for deciding on the final poems in the book (i.e.: the oldest is from 1971, were you trying to find something as old as possible)?
BB: I was not looking for something as old as possible, but I was looking for poems that fit the title/theme/flavor of the book and also were good enough to include. I wasn’t writing many long poems in the seventies and “The Tiger Does Not Know” was the only one I felt met the above criteria, both because it is dark and because it has a clear surreal influence.
HWA: With a reputation as one of the great dark/horror poets, I have to ask: do you have
any happy poetry? Love poems or limericks you’d like to share?
BB: In the horror field I’m known as a dark poet; in the science fiction field I’m known as a speculative poet. Nearly all the poems I write are speculative in one way or another, but there are plenty that are not dark. I don’t recall any “happy” poems. “Happy” generally doesn’t lead to a very interesting read in either fiction or poetry.
But here’s a short love poem.
SHADOW LIGHT
for Maggie
In the shadow of
the Magellanic Cloud,
where the stellar
dust sweeps gather
in their ornamental craft,
beyond the flash of novas
as forecast by the Galactic
Bureau of Standards,
we will choose a planet
to share and refine
with our eloquent
and bold imaginations.
And here’s a speculative poem that is not the least bit dark.
TO DINE WITH POETRY AND MATHEMATICS
The mathematics of poetry
is irregular in the extreme,
an unbounded system
approaching absolutes
the way parallel lines
converge at infinity,
an incomplete accumulation
always in the act
of redefining itself,
or some other act
equally outrageous,
inconsistent and
sure as the sea.
The poetry of mathematics
is clean of line and form
with all elements in place,
like a bullet clicking
into an oiled chamber,
like the finely calibrated
path of a rocket’s glide:
graceful equations flow
with absolute and enviable
precision to a vanishing point
where all questions are null,
all balance is defined.
When poetry and mathematics
sit down for dinner
the evening is vintage,
the conversation moves
by leaps and starts,
like time or evolution,
like the human imagination
as it tunnels and jump cuts
from occlusion to conclusion,
from a well of mired thought
to the heights of light sublime.
For more on Dark Roads, including sample poems: http://www.bruceboston.com/DarkRoadsSampler.html
For more on Bruce Boston: http://bruceboston.com
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