Our world – which for past millennia has inspired poets and philosophers to write and declaim about the nature of being human and explore the reasons for our existence etc. – now feels small, tired, squalid, and parochial somehow.

This perception of a diminished, degraded Earth is, I think, pervading humanity, and it leads me to the following question…

Are we humans poised on the brink of, or at least hungry for, a major new phase in our existence – namely contact with intelligent, extraterrestrial life?

For various cultural reasons, this subject is usually regarded as crankish, mad even … though actually it has massive and serious scientific, philosophical and theological significance.

If there is intelligent alien life on other words, do those beings have anything like the questing, restless spirit and the creative impulse that drives us humans to write poetry?

If extraterrestrials do exist, and if they do write poetry, I wonder what it will be like…

Will their poetry be driven by similar themes to ours, such as: love between sentient life forms; the mystery of death (if they are mortals); physical beauty etc.

Or will the poetry of other worlds be radically different? And will THEIR poetry communicate to us?

S.R. phone home.

You ask some very searching questions Mr. Regan. I've thought about this. I've thought about this a lot. My answer to your question is... no.

For a more detailed hypothesis please go to page 666 in't Fargos catalogue.

Actually, scrub that. There's a word for people who are unaware or ignorant of the maxims involved in holding a conversation (no, not 'wife'). So, I'll give this some proper thought. Afterall, astronomy and the cosmos are worth looking into...

I thought the vogons already had a monopoly on alien poems

not to mention , the clangers , very lyrical i thought

In a past life, I did once arrest one of the Clangers. During the interview and through an interpretator (as they say in Wigan) this hapless creature regaled us all with his whistles of woe. How their space-ship made of a helium filled sock, crash landed in the world's most desolate place. When we checked his sock's co-ordinates, turns out it was New Brighton.
Apparently, this Clanger lived there for several years before he was dropped from a great height. Hence the saying 'I've just dropped a small, pink wotsit with a long face, wearing shiny armour breast plates'. With the help of Merseyside's etymological police - this was later beaten into a mush of letters that we now interpret as 'mistake'. Anyway, at the end of the interview the Clanger escaped from lawful custard by squeezing through the gaps in my teeth. Never seen him since. I think I digested the little bendy - nosed dexter. Which may explain how or why I enjoy eating blue string and talk absolute balls of soup.
I have an iron chicken too, pecking at my head most days - but that's another story. Anyway, what was the question? To infirmary - and beyond!

Ooh, by the way. What planet is this?

In my experience, Vogon poetry isn't the only aural expression of the art to cause torture beyond endurance. You can hear at least one or two examples at most poetry open mics throughout the country.

So there was I raising a serious subject ... and so far no serious replies.

The 'various cultural reasons' that I mentioned about why the possibility of extra-terrestrial life doesn't get the serious attention it deserves, include: the ET film, the Clangers and The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy (though 'Hitchikers', at least, was good and clever). So thanks for bringing them up, Moxy, Shoeless and Darren - NOT!

Come on ... I mean COME ON! Let's try to think about and discuss this away from sci-fi stereotypes and 'nudge,nudge' comedy capers.

Steve

Has it ever occurred to you that 'they' are already here ...upon earth, and have been for some time. You don't really have to look too far... recognition is easy for those who are 'Alien'.. so I am told. The artistic and higher intellectual freedom thus far enjoyed by mankind may well have been, and for that matter may continue to be, encouraged by ... 'them'. Just a thought...

OMG Gus!.

Maybe I'm one of 'em!!

What God' That then Steve...? or should it be whos?

Oh, there's only One True God, Gus.

He's the Lord of the Universe ... and he's a Roman Catholic, of course!!

Oh, flamin' Norah! Now I've inadvertetly started another discession subject ... just as this one was getting interesting.

the whys and wherefors of that particular debate can wait ... but your momentary lapse has highlighted the fact that we, mankind, are all in his likeness... or are some of us different?

There isn't even a definition of terrestrial poetry that we can all agree on. How can we be expected to describe the unearthly type?

'I wandered lonely as a helium gas cloud
That floats on high o'er splendid crator
When all at once I saw a crowd
Of furry five-legged alligators.....'

'They fuck you up your non-sexually regenerative single parents....'

'My mistress's five eyes are nothing like the suns....'

???????????????????????????????????

Well I found people in Norfolk to be a bit different - three eyes in each head etc, very 1950s Alien from Central Casting! - but that's because mating within the family is such a strong tradition in East Anglia.

A serious subject? You mean you want me to speculate on subjects that so called ‘educated’ and ‘learned’ people cannot even agree upon? Agree on its concept. Agree on its theological ramifications? And are we talking about what ‘we’ as a western culture have evolved into and how we view our world, or do we include other ‘lesser’ cultures and how they perceive their own, perhaps, unique world too?

‘Our world’ is a little misleading. ‘This’ world sounds and sits a little more snug - in my lap at least. There are ‘worlds’ out there on planet Earth that are already inside our own notions of what a world is. Cultures which have a long standing history but have chosen not to become corrupted with science and a modern day phallocracy. So, if a ‘modern contemporary’ society is asking collective questions about where it’s at and where it fits into the great scheme of things. Do we have to look towards other worlds before we can begin to understand the workings of our own world?

Writing systems in this world have been discovered but, as yet, have not been deciphered. And if ‘aliens’ from another world communicated it would have to be in a system that was mutually comprehensible not just to each of them, but to other life-forms too. Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters...’ touched upon this with the differential pitches in sound and light AND with the language of signing between the ‘alien’ life forms and the ‘scientists’.
A Pope’s notion of what life after death is really like, is no more valid than my simple notion. Yet some people listen to what he has to say because they have been conditioned from a young age that A Pope is one step away from divinity. Whereas me? I’m a long way from my spiritual Nirvana.
Religion muddies the waters of science. Language is a science. Without language we have no ability to communicate our thoughts. Thoughts which themselves have been allowed to evolve through the use and concepts of various language. Afterall, how did we arrive at thought, if we didn’t have the vocabulary with which to think in the first instance? We should spend more time trying to establish or determine these questions and maybe that will allow us to make more of an ‘educated guess’ about the language/writing systems of other worlds.
If ‘aliens’ possess both the thought process and intellect to travel to other worlds then it’s reasonable to assume that they have a mutually comprehensible language system in place. And would aliens talk with a dialect in much the same way humans can and do. Maybe, just maybe, those aliens who live further than the Hubble’s eye can even begin to imagine are at the opposite end of a universal dialect chain.
Maybe this world is a microcosm for the rest of the known universe? There are people who live twenty miles away from me who don’t understand what I say.
And would there be a pretention with alien poetry? Prescriptive aliens – they sound really dangerous.
I don’t know Steve? My world, at the moment, doesn’t feel small enough. Tired enough. And certainly not squalid enough, to give you a suitable reply.
Nudge – nudge – wink - wink.

Incidentally, if you watched the Clangers often enough, and listened to their language system it DID become mutually comprehensible. Clangers have feeling to, you know.

Maybe you're looking for a Zebra when it should be a horse?

Can't argue with any of that, Dazza, mainly coz I'm too thick.

You're quite possibly the cleverest man in Wigan. You've obviously been up the varsity.

Maybe we'll discuss this further, over an Intergalactic Gargleblaster or three, in company with all the sentient life forms that inhabit the Boulevard Bar, Wigan, in some future twilight zone.

Just keep me away from the Morrisons till girls from Ince who sometimes go in there. They are life forms, Darren, but not as we know them.

The Chicklettes in Wigan sound a bit fierce... but the girls from East Anglia now they sound much more incesting...
...

A digression I know, but loosely associated with aliens, is anyone going to the Chorlton Arts festival event tonight? The play by Mel Ree's at The Spread Eagle?

For those bemused by the Vogon reference there's more at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon

- "the third worst poetry in the universe."

There's then quite a fun online Vogon poetry generator at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/vogonpoetry/lettergen.shtml

It's where I get all my best pieces from ;-) My latest came out as:


See, see the remarkable sky
Marvel at its big vermillion depths.
Tell me, Algernon do you
Wonder why the skunk ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel depressed.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your smurglumpificated facial growth
That looks like
A mould.
What's more, it knows
Your plump potting shed
Smells of bogey.
Everything under the big remarkable sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm cheeses.

the aliens are already here.
they infiltrated us long ago.
only David Vincent can save us.

T H E I N V A D E R S
with Steve Regan.

In tonight's episode, clash of Walshy and Daz Thomas, both well established colony leaders of the third division under parry, Walshy gave the game away by his importation of the phase plasma rifle, strictly forbidden on Earth, Thomas bubbled him to mother superior (yes THE actual Glasgow 11th floor (Summerville court) block of flats) A great disguise for the third rank to establish its board of fayre, doping out in regular fashion the Glasgow junkettes (they prefer female for some reason)

anyway I digress, point is that Regans busted the whole show (((at least in Glasgow) (no one believes him mind) (do they ever?)))
I mean crumbs think of Dave Vincent he was at it in the 60s

How did Regan do it>? recall the phase plasma rifle, yep Daz Thomas dared walshy to fire a shot off over the cityscape, scare a few cyber pigeons (artificial, created by aliens), Regan picked up the shockwave, homed on it.
Caught up with all 3 of em in the flat, Walshy, Thomas and mOther Superior . Offered them to a mini slam , human v alien slam, Regan was beaten badly, awaking in Preston Town Hall bin section (just round from front steps) he alamost was consumed by the Biffa Bin Collecting machine till a YTS (also alien) operator noticed him, reported back to restablished hq (now temp moved to floor 10 of summerville court), a quick touch of the forehead just to make sure Regans mind was blanked, then they planted the question of Alien life forms, just so as not to make him look suspicious,

hence Steves Recent post .
only thing is, I have put myself in jeppordy posting
more ways than one I think

I believe

do you?



err yeah

well , i have sat all evening with googly disco balls on springs on my head , but i have received no information or inspiration on the poetry front , perhaps seti know more.

Well, if I wasn't confused before, I sure am now after Mr Crompton's contribution.

this David Vincent geezer. Is he the voice actor who gobs up trashy animated shoot-'em-up whatevers?

Or the American 'Heavy Rock' 'musician'?

Or the ginger reporter of the same name who I worked alongaside on the East Anglian Daily Times, circa 1982-83 ... the one who was always in a nark and altogether nowtier than Darren Thomas in the middle of a sciatica attack when Greenhalgh's have run out of pies?

Whatever the case, I'm dazed and confused.

But the fight for universal liberation goes on. Now excuse me, I must hook up to the Mother ship for a while.

MOTHER!!

I have been having a little think , if we consider that et life forms may be considered to be as different , or as similar to us as apes , dogs , fish , birds ? do we appreciate or understand their poetry?

i would say not really , we might appreciate their beauty , or the way they live as a species , but to understand poetry , well to be honest i dont understand a lot of the poetry i read written by other humans