Martian poetry
Martian poetry. A distinctly English style of Surrealism in poetry, of the 1970s and early 1980s. Poets most closely associated with it are Craig Raine and Christopher Reid. It was first popularized by Raine's collection A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979). Through the heavy use of curious, exotic and humourous metaphors, Martian Poetry aimed to break the grip of 'the familiar' in English poetry, by describing ordinary things (such as a book) as if through the eyes of a Martian.
For instance, books are described by Raine as...
- mechanical birds with many wings
- perch on the hand
- cause the eyes to melt
- or the body to shriek without pain
Unsurprisingly, Martian poetry became a popular method in the teaching of poetry composition to school children.
It arose in the context of the experimental poetry of the late 1960s; but also owes a debt to English traditions of nonsense poetry (e.g.: Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear), and even the Anglo-Saxon riddles.