The poem “Sci-Fi” by Tracy K. Smith reveals the narrator’s fantasies with a utopian world where controlling forces, rules, and restrictions become cease to exist. The poem illuminates details about the futuristic world where the word sun will be forgotten, people will be living longer, and safely drifting through space. The narrator also suggests that equality will rule the future world where people will live without fear due to their identities. Smith’s poem attempts to detach humanity from nature by suggesting that humans will live unhinged and weightlessly floating out in space many years from our own moon in purpose-built devices to escape earth. The narrator also suggests that humans will eventually understand the mysteries of space. Smith’s poem manipulates language using repetitions such as “mounds and mounds” and “women will still be women.” The narrator also uses allusions in referring to the dinosaurs’ extinction. The poem was published in 2011, and the narrator may have been inspired by the science fiction movies that dominated the movie industry between 2009 and 2010.
“Of the Threads that Connect the Stars” by Martin Espada is a poem that focuses on the continuity across three generations of a family and their attempt to find meaning from looking at the stars. The narrator’s conversation reveals that they reside in Brooklyn, where the local community has undergone decades of pollution from the nearby junkyard that burned mattresses. The narrator reveals that he never saw stars from the smoke, although his father saw them and his son has to use a telescope to see the same stars. “Of the Threads that Connect the Stars” hints that human is a part of nature and responsible for damaging it through irresponsible actions such as pollution.
The narrator reveals the historical environmental injustices meted on his community when he says, “I understand a smoking mattress better than the language of galaxies.” Martin Espada effectively uses imagery to portray interactions and important events in each of the three men’s lifetimes. Additionally, “seeing stars” can be understood as a double meaning or double entendre because the phrase both refers to observing the celestial bodies or suffering a concussion from being knocked out. The poem was published in 2013 when the rates of premature mortalities due to air pollution reached unprecedented levels. Consequently, “I never saw stars” may also allude to the narrator’s failure to see the dead infants reach their full potential in life.