The Ugly Little Boy

A short story by Isaac Asimov written in 1958, whose plot revolves around a Neanderthal boy brought to present day via time machine stuff, and he can’t move out of the compound because he’ll create a lot of paradoxes. Edith, a woman who works at the compound, sees the human inside the Neanderthal child and treats him as her own son. She sees he is much more intelligent than what the other scientists thought, and names him ‘Timmie’. She finds the good in him, and Edith’s love for Timmie brings her to an argument with her employer who thinks Timmie is just a dumb monkey. Eventually, the lab people are done researching Timmie, and now they want to teleport a medieval peasant, but with the book’s rules you need to get rid of Timmie first, but Edith doesn’t want this to happen so she tries to smuggle Timmie outside the compound, knowing he’ll create time paradoxes. She doesn’t succeed in running away so she tampers with the machine and teleports Timmie to his timeline.

Steampunk

A science-fiction sub-genre that is retrofuturistic and uses steam-powered industrial machinery from the 19th century, and is based on the industrial revolution. The works evolved in this sub-genre are most of the time in alternative timelines. It exploded in the industrial revolution. It also used revolutionized tech from scientists like Charles Babbage who made the analytical engine. The most famous steampunk author is H.G Wells and Jules Verne is often credited with serving as an inspiration for the sub-genre.

The Difference Engine

A novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in 1855, being in an alternate timeline where Charles Babbage perfects his analytical engine, an early version of a computer in which you need to insert punch cards and so the machine can solve complex mathematical problems, and so he develops humanity. The story begins with the three main characters Sybil Gerard, Edward Malory, and Laurence Oliphant finding a box full of precious engine cards. The discovery leads to their near-murder…but by who? It is important to know that Sybil Gerard’s father was a luddite, as the story still takes place during the industrial revolution. The narrator turns out to be a computer gaining consciousness at the end.

Guy Gavriel Kay

Is an author that combines history and fantasy. He bases his story about a certain culture in history – chinese, vikings, native americans, east europeans, germanics, romans, you name it. Then he gets into their old culture, and finds the fantastic and magical bits of their culture, therefore in a story about vikings, he will find nordic figures such as fairies, and gods from the nordic mythology. He’s French-Canadian. He is mainly known for his top tier atmosphere building, and also served as a successor to J R R Tolkien, the creator of Lord of the Rings. So he has been successful for a while because he knows how to make a great atmosphere from combining the historically old culture with its cultural myths as they’re being real, making a fantasy world of how the characters would imagine a fantasy world.

All the Seas of the World

A book by Guy Gavriel Kay. This book is his latest, and came out in April of 2022. It is a drama novel. All the Seas of the World includes reflections on life and living and illustrates the way in which the fates of different people can become entangled as a result of choice and chance. Though the book could readily be enjoyed by fans of A Brightness Long Ago, it can also easily be read as a one-off.

A Dog Has Died - Pablo Neruda

Neruda takes the reader through the different aspects of his dog’s personality. The dog wasn’t over-affectionate or overbearing. The dog did as he liked when wanting. He gave Neruda enough attention to have a close relationship with him. He lastly describes how the dog was joyful in any scenario, and unlike humans, dogs can always be happy. A poem built of 8 stanzas and separated into uneven sets of lines. There isn’t any rhyme scheme and there isn’t a common metrical pattern. Neruda used alliteration, when words are used in succession, and begin with the same sound. He also uses similes by using words such as “like” “as”. Also repetition, the use of a specific word, tone or phrase within a poem, and in this poem in the sixth stanza Neruda uses the word “joyful” three times a row, which emphasizes how joyful the dog was. Enjambment occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point and continues onto the next line. It is in the poem in the transition between lines 2-3 in the third stanza and lines 1-2 in the 5th stanza. Pablo Neruda is a Chilean poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in the 70’s. He has also fallen in love with poetry since he was 13, and after getting involved in politics, especially falling in love with communism, Neruda knew how to combine poets with politics. After Augusto Pinochet was in power in Chile, and this guy hated communists, he poisoned Neruda. Pablo Neruda constructs the past in his poem by bringing memories of his dead dog – memories of the past. By giving these memories, he reconstructs the past. Also considered an elegy.

Dodo - Henry Carlile

In the poem Carlile talks about the Dodo, which is an example of a life form that was so useless - having too small feathers to fly, having too big legs to run, even humans didn’t want its feathers for hats, and now being extinct and having its bones scattered and  locked across museums. As we all know, the dodo is extinct (I literally didn’t know). He feels like the dodo is useless and miserable. It connects to the theme with the fact that the dodo is the past, extinct, while the poet brings up the dodo topic, and by that reconstructing the past. Henry Carlile is a poet from San Francisco that has most of his poems located in the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. He has been a famous poet for over 50 years now. Also the poem represents the past (dodo) reconstructed (in a museum as a stuffed animal).

The Dodo - Hilaire Beloc

Is a humorous poem that talks about the dodo and the fact that it’s extinct too, yet in a much humorous way. The dodo was once roaming on the land, but now he can’t speak or move – he’s in the museum exhibit. That’s why the past, the dodo, is reconstructed as a stuffed animal. Hilaire Beloc is one of the most controversial poets of early 20th century England. There is rhyming in the poem, it sounds like a children's song. The Dodo also has a hidden meaning, as the Dodo resembles the natives who didn’t know how to deal with the colonialists, and their culture is now being put only in museums.

Brazilian Telephone - Miriam Greenberg

A poem that talks from a perspective of a mother who usually sees a bunch of children in the peach orchard hanging out, and the poem starts in a point where one of the children gets from the library an old textbook of old science experiments, and the group of kids decide to try one of the experiments on one kid, and also they steal most of the stuff for the experiment from the mother’s house and some old ruins. They did one of the experiments on a kid, by putting two electrodes on his nipples. The child with the electrodes mews, and the kid with the textbook tells them he thinks this is called “the Brazilian telephone”. The poem is a short story in a poem structure, and it uses memorable quotes of the children. Miriam Greenberg is the daughter of a Jewish New Yorker and an anthropologist, and so she grew up in Texas. It connects to the subject because the children use an old book and retry it.

The Municipal Gallery Revisited - W. B Yeats

The poem talks about the poet going to the municipal gallery in Ireland, having a lot of portraits of soldiers and Irish war stuff, then the poet realizing that Ireland in real life, fighting wars, is different from the quirky Ireland the Irish poets tell about - two different countries. He then watches a few portraits of his friends in real life, who were poets such as John Synge and Augusta Gregory, and remembers that war glory is not important, and the real glory is the friends you made on the way. It connects to the subject because he remembers his friends from the past who shaped Irish history, who are also in museum portraits too. W. B Yeats is one of the most famous poets in the 20th century. Most of his poems are about Ireland. He got a Literature Nobel Prize.

On Shakespeare - John Milton

This was part of the introductory material to the Second Folio, a collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Milton loves Shakespeare by stating that nothing is as worthy for greatness as Shakespeare. He also suggests that Shakespeare’s works live on within the hearts and minds of his audiences. It connects to the subject because Shakespeare, the past, is still on our minds and hearts. The poem is built by one long stanza, rhymes, uses rhetoric words and alliteration. John Milton was an English poet and lawyer in the 17th century. He was adored and compared to Shakespeare by a lot of people. His poem was put inside the Second Folio by an anonymous person.

At the tomb of Napoleon - Robert G. Ingersoll

It is a quote by Robert G Ingersoll that is kinda like an essay too. The essay starts by the poet being near the tomb of Napoleon, and what he says is divided into two parts. The first one talks about how the poet saw Napoleon in all of his doings – capturing a lot of countries and giving a lot of glory for their country, France. The second part then talks about the cost – how Napoleon made a lot of widows and orphans, and how he was pro war anti peace, so it’s not good and therefore he would rather be a peasant than this murderous monster. At the end he looks at the tomb with shame. It is kinda an essay of criticism on Napoleon. Ingersoll is a poet but mainly a lawyer who was successful in America, and he was in defense of the fact that there’s no proof for god – therefore god doesn’t exist.

Kyoto - Basho

Is an early version of Haiku, and talks about the fact that Basho, a Japanese poet, feels a strong desire to go to Kyoto, a city in Japan, by hearing the cuckoo in Kyoto. Basho may be the most famous Japanese poet, and he basically invented the haiku format we know today, the form of 17 syllables. He lived during the Genroku Period, a sort of Japanese Renaissance. His poems are about Japan. He first lived in Kyoto, but then moved to Edo, therefore in this poem he remembers the iconic cuckoo in Kyoto, and so he longs for it. The interesting structure of this poem is that it’s in the form of Haiku.

A Brief History of Toa Payoh - Koh Buck Song

Toyah Payoh is a city in Singapore that translates to “big swamp”. It once had big swamps. The poet tells how some people think that Toa Payoh doesn’t have any history, and then explains how in fact it is important. Why is it? It was one of the first cities to become a satellite city in Singapore. It held the first Asian world cup, the queen of Singapore lived there, and it is a symbol of modernisation, as it was one of the first places to be reshaped from a city to a town. Koh Buck Song is a Singaporean writer and poet born in 1963, and his poems talk about Singapore’s development, being fictional or non-fictional poets.

Kubla Khan - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Is a famous romantic poem about the kingdom of Kubla Khan, specifically about the city of Xanadu. Kubla was a powerful ruler who was very powerful, to the level of when he ordered the building of a dome with caves of ice in sunny places. At the end it is revealed to be a dream of the poet, just like reality, the night after he read a book about Kubla Khan. Colerige likely read about Kublai khan on drugs and then  had a dream where the poem was apparently revealed to him, so he started writing it when he woke up but couldn't achieve the two hundred lines he planned because he was apparently interrupted by a "person from Porlock" (which literally has its own wikipedia page and has become "a literary allusion to unwanted intruders who disrupt inspired creativity") causing him to forget it.

The Czar’s Last Christmas Letter - Norman Dubie

The poem is from the perspective of Tsar Nicolas II, after Russia became communist and now he’s not a czar anymore. It looks like a letter, but in 2 lines for each paragraph. He tells his mother that he regrets going to WW1, and the fact that his last royal general, Illya, died by the Bolsheviks. Soon, he died too, as the headline of the poem suggests. Norman Dubie is a poet from America that loves 20th century history. He likes to see the perspective of the losing side in historical events.