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Wavelength, v. 1, issue 3, Fall 1941

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[centered] THE POETS AND POETRY OF FANDOM        3
[centered] L. R. Chauvenet

A poem, to a hard-pressed fanzine editor frantically attempting to fill out his publication before the deadline, can be a very welcome thing. After all, a poem takes up more space that the same number of words in prose, and gives the mag a literary appearance, at no extra cost. It is therefore not surprising that most fanzines of any stand-ing have been prone to accept verse of dubious quality and little or no connection with science fiction, merely because the author hap-pened to be a fan, or, possibly, a personal friend of the editor. On the other hand, some editors, especially those who are themselves of literary bent, have tried to present poetry of definite worth, and, on occasion, have succeeded. My fanzine collection is small, but, even so, I have notes on nearly one hundred, fifty poems by approx-imately fifty poets. Some of the poems indicate definite ability, a few are good in their own right, and others are interesting because they show significant trends. It is the purpose of this article to discuss such works as stand out from the mass for any of the reasons given, and to comment upon the apparent talents of the authors.
All criticism is subjective; it represents the reaction of one individual to the creation of another. But if criticism is to have value, the standards by which the critic is forming his judgments should be clear and acceptable. In my opinion, a poem may have any of several functions, and be successful insofar as its aim is a-chieved. Thus, we have humorous poetry, didactic poetry, and aes-thetic poetry, which latter class is often described as "true" poetry; poems falling into this class are customarily "poetic" in the common sense of the term. Regardless of the ends to which a poem is com-posed, its mechanical structure should conform with certain definite rules of versification. If a poem is written in meter, the poet must understand how to handle the meter, and not allow his lines to limp and sag in awkward places, or, anywhere, for that matter. If the poem is composed in so-called "free"-verse, the poet must possess an ex-ceptionally keen sense of rhythm and a proper ear for spacing the stresses, or else he will soon find himself writing merely prose. So much for the preliminaries.
Most verse which has been published in science fiction fanzines is trending more towards the fantastic than towards anything else. This is readily understandable, for it is easy to let the imagination free to form unrestrained mages, but not so easy to dwell on something, as must be done if fan poetry is to amount to something really worth while, concrete, such as space-flight, and still retain the flavor of poetry. W. Lawrence Hamling's poems illustrates what happens to a poet in the first ease, when the poet does not possess a high degree of originality. For instance: "Secret of the Tomb" ( 2:3 ). It has all the usual scenery of an amateur weird poem, the devil, death, fog, shadows, mist, tombstones, spectres, ghouls, l[i]ving dead men and some thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. Or take his "Yearning" ( S 1:7 ), which sounds something like the "unborn child wanting to be born", referred to in the third Skylark story, but which would hardly attract first order intelligences, let alone sixth order bright boys. Verse of this kind is lifeless, even when, as is not always the case, the meter is impeccable. On the other hand we see Damon Knight for example showing us an idea of how a weird poem should be handled; his "Fishers" ( S 2:7 ) is a good sonnet, distinguished from the average such fan effort by leaving a lot to thee imagination and relying on suggestion for the effect. This is a point which H. P. Lovecraft well understood, as his "The Outpost" ( S 3:1 )  demonstrates. There is magic in the lines:

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[centered] THE POETS AND POETRY OF FANDOM 3 [centered] L. R. Chauvenet A poem, to a hard-pressed fanzine editor frantically attempting to fill out his publication before the deadline, can be a very welcome thing. After all, a poem takes up more space that the same number of words in prose, and gives the mag a literary appearance, at no extra cost. It is therefore not surprising that most fanzines of any stand-ing have been prone to accept verse of dubious quality and little or no connection with science fiction, merely because the author hap-pened to be a fan, or, possibly, a personal friend of the editor. On the other hand, some editors, especially those who are themselves of literary bent, have tried to present poetry of definite worth, and, on occasion, have succeeded. My fanzine collection is small, but, even so, I have notes on nearly one hundred, fifty poems by approx-imately fifty poets. Some of the poems indicate definite ability, a few are good in their own right, and others are interesting because they show significant trends. It is the purpose of this article to discuss such works as stand out from the mass for any of the reasons given, and to comment upon the apparent talents of the authors. All criticism is subjective; it represents the reaction of one individual to the creation of another. But if criticism is to have value, the standards by which the critic is forming his judgments should be clear and acceptable. In my opinion, a poem may have any of several functions, and be successful insofar as its aim is a-chieved. Thus, we have humorous poetry, didactic poetry, and aes-thetic poetry, which latter class is often described as "true" poetry; poems falling into this class are customarily "poetic" in the common sense of the term. Regardless of the ends to which a poem is com-posed, its mechanical structure should conform with certain definite rules of versification. If a poem is written in meter, the poet must understand how to handle the meter, and not allow his lines to limp and sag in awkward places, or, anywhere, for that matter. If the poem is composed in so-called "free"-verse, the poet must possess an ex-ceptionally keen sense of rhythm and a proper ear for spacing the stresses, or else he will soon find himself writing merely prose. So much for the preliminaries. Most verse which has been published in science fiction fanzines is trending more towards the fantastic than towards anything else. This is readily understandable, for it is easy to let the imagination free to form unrestrained mages, but not so easy to dwell on something, as must be done if fan poetry is to amount to something really worth while, concrete, such as space-flight, and still retain the flavor of poetry. W. Lawrence Hamling's poems illustrates what happens to a poet in the first ease, when the poet does not possess a high degree of originality. For instance: "Secret of the Tomb" ( 2:3 ). It has all the usual scenery of an amateur weird poem, the devil, death, fog, shadows, mist, tombstones, spectres, ghouls, l[i]ving dead men and some thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. Or take his "Yearning" ( S 1:7 ), which sounds something like the "unborn child wanting to be born", referred to in the third Skylark story, but which would hardly attract first order intelligences, let alone sixth order bright boys. Verse of this kind is lifeless, even when, as is not always the case, the meter is impeccable. On the other hand we see Damon Knight for example showing us an idea of how a weird poem should be handled; his "Fishers" ( S 2:7 ) is a good sonnet, distinguished from the average such fan effort by leaving a lot to thee imagination and relying on suggestion for the effect. This is a point which H. P. Lovecraft well understood, as his "The Outpost" ( S 3:1 ) demonstrates. There is magic in the lines: