4 Space-Themed Poems That Prove Poetry Is Out of This World
Whether you’re in a reading slump or facing writer’s block, sometimes the best solution is to gravitate toward poetry that takes you away from the familiar and instead to completely unexpected places. Few subjects fit this description quite like poetry themed around or even set within space. With its vast unknowns and its way of exemplifying big-picture themes like existence and mortality, outer space can be a vibrant and intriguing playground for writers. Here’s a look at how beloved poets have delved into its endless questions and potential.
“In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” by Ada Limón
Poem excerpt:
“Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we
pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.”
“In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” which Poet Laureate Ada Limón dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, space is viewed as a new vantage point for our world. Limón begins with the mystery of space, describing it as engulfing and inconceivable “black expansiveness,” before turning this sense of wonder back on more immediate surroundings. She tunnels from the all-encompassing and general to the small and specific—a lone “songbird singing” in its one “wind-shaken tree.” This contrast shows how the details of our lives are part of a greater whole and treats these small moments with weighty, reimagined reverence.
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman
Poem excerpt:
“When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
…How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.”
Like Limón, Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” also looks at space from an everyday and ordinary vantage point. Whitman starts the poem with a description of an astronomer’s “proofs” and “figures,” hinting at how one view of space and its unimaginable looming can be to quantify and calculate. However, Whitman contends that this way of seeing the world can lead one to become “tired and sick,” and shows how rewarding it can be to instead simply marvel and observe. The serene, almost meditative tone of Whitman’s stanzas mirror the sky’s invitation to be solitary, quiet, and deeply present.
“i love you to the moon &” by Chen Chen
Poem excerpt:
“not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden
with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
…let’s love each other
(so good) on the moon, let’s love
the moon
on the moon.”
In Chen Chen’s “i love you to the moon &,” the luminous potential of space becomes a setting for queer utopia. The poem is a powerful exploration of how life could be lighter, more expansive, and more accepting. “are you packing your bags yet,” Chen asks in the poem, “don’t forget your sailor moon jacket.” These lovely, warm, and homey details present the moon not as a place that’s unknown, but as a place where we can reunite with the most nostalgic and true parts of ourselves.
“Dear White America” by Danez Smith
Poem excerpt:
“i’ve left Earth & i am touching everything you beg your telescopes to show you. i’m giving the stars their right names. & this life, this new story & history you cannot steal or sell or cast overboard or hang or beat or drown or own or redline or shackle or silence or cheat or choke or cover up or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or ruin”
Just as Chen Chen uses space as a way of embodying radical queer joy, Lambda Literary Award winner and National Book Award finalist Danez Smith leans into its associations with afrofuturism and liberation. Through the metaphors of space, Smith’s powerful poem leaves Earth behind in search of a “new story & history,” one untouched by and miles beyond white, state-sanctioned violence. In this new world, Black people “give the stars their right names,” instead of living in a world named and claimed by white oppressors. “Dear White America,” which went viral after Button Poetry posted Smith’s spoken word performance, acts as a searing indictment of the world as it is and a refuge into the world as it should be.
Feeling inspired by this poetry round-up? Try using space as a metaphor in your poetry, too. Research an aspect of space that fascinates you and write your next poem based around this newfound knowledge. Use the vocabulary of space, space-themed imagery, and space as a vivid, unusual setting to take your reader on an extra planetary journey. Take the approach of some of the poets on this list and reflect on what a view from space can teach us about the Earth we inhabit. Or, like others, consider how space may provide a vision for new and revolutionary ways of being.
