The Space Poet

 

Who art in heaven? who but a poet, alone with pen and paper, as gone away from the girl as she has ever been, and yet still never farther from heaven, even though, at 250 miles above the Earth, one might think they should be getting close.

In this hybrid work of prose and poetry, Samantha Edmonds tells the story of an artist—the first in space—sent by NASA to the International Space Station on a mission to make the stars accessible to those left on the ground. Nimbly pairing themes of queerness, religious guilt, and an uneasy search for belonging with scientific theories about multiverses, universal consciousness, and habitability on other planets, The Space Poet stands at the edges of human reach, out in the black where nothing can live, and dares to imagine a home.

Published by Split/Lip Press, 2020. Buy the book here.   

Praise for The Space Poet

“What if NASA hadn’t canceled their plans to send a series of civilians—a teacher, a journalist, a poet—to space? What if the space poet were a reluctant traveler with imposter syndrome, a recent breakup, and an unerring eye for the details that make life in space uncomfortable, strange, and beautiful?”

—Margaret Lazarus Dean, author of Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Space Flight

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“It’s understandable that the narrator of Samantha Edmonds’ The Space Poet wants to get away from earth—the politics, the dying planet, the Pentecostal family who would reject her for the woman she loves. This lyric meditation of space, longing, and the queer female experience explores the endless distances we must cross for what and whom we love.”

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—Erin Elizabeth Smith, author of The Naming of Strays

 

Read a full review of The Space Poet here by Split City Reads.