The Martians 30-31: A Meditative Something-or-Other and Equilibrium Punctuation

Hello listeners and goodbye Mars! With this episode we leave KSR's Mars behind, as we conclude The Martians, the "apocrypha" of the Mars Trilogy.  [SPOILER ALERT: Our next venture will be KSR's Aurora, and will get started mid-January to early-February. We suggest you get your copy now and read it through once before we start (if you, like Matt, haven't already read it), then read it again with us!] We leave Mars in a mood similar to that created by the ending of this collection, with a mixture of melancholy and relief. It's hard to leave these works behind, but we're looking forward to new adventures and a new book! Here we talk about the two final sections of The Martians, the collection of poems "If Wang Wei Lived on Mars" and the autobiographical "Purple Mars." Matt and Hilary find a lot to talk about regarding the form of poetry and what it demands and makes possible for us readers. We dive deep into poems including "Visiting," "After a Move" & "Canyon Color" & "Vastitas Borealis," "Six Thoughts on the Uses of Art,"  "Report on the First Recorded Case of Areophagy," and "The Red's Lament." These poems are thoughtful, sad, profound, hilarious, and, in a word, brilliant, resonating with the history of poetry from Dante to Wordsworth (and likely beyond). If you thought Stan was good at writing novels, dig his sci-fi poetry! Here the line between fiction and reality completely blurs, and the political themes of the Mars Trilogy give way to a much more personal constellation of concerns and expressions. There is a brief bout of unavoidable audio distortion at about 22 minutes (mitigated by a musical interlude) and a brief digression into film criticism somewhere around 1 hour 20 minutes. Then we share our favorite moments from "Purple Mars." Hilary appreciates the thoughtfully hilarious description of the absurdity of the writing process, and Matt wonders aloud why we never saw any of the Mars characters go poop. Try harder, Stan! We have had such a great time reading through this world with you and we hope you join us in 2020 as we bask in Aurora and beyond! Thank you for listening and supporting us! Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space