American Galactic

by Laura Madeline Wiseman

Opening with an epigraph from Charles Simic, “Lots of people around here have been taken for rides in UFOs, American Galactic, Laura Madeline Wiseman’s fourth full-length book of poetry, explores the sci-fi realm of Martians, crop circles, abductions, and how the human race faces an extra terrestrial invasion: “I don’t know/ what I’d do if Martians arrived at my door.” From pop culture films like Planet of the __________, to comic book icons like Poison Ivy, to the larger literary imaginary of the red planet’s inhabitants, American Galactic charts the intergalactic tale right here at home. Find out about “The Left Boob of Largeness.” Learn “What do Martians Want.” Understand “Why not to Buy Martians Sundaes Topped with Cherries.” And ultimately enjoy these “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in this bold new book of sci-fi poetry.

“Warning: south of the train tracks, a Martian dream. Stranger still, habitable worlds abound. Wander through them, the lunar greenhouse full of NASA-planted lettuce, the fields of genetically modified soybeans, the tips to save your life. Like a Martian, ‘ooh and ahh at crescent moons, the meteor showers.’ Absorb this motion, before it vanishes. What’s staged and what’s real? What mechanism clears away panic and fear from a landscape, until it awaits pilgrims? The answers, or not-answers, are within the galaxies of AMERICAN GALACTIC.
– Monica Wendel, author of CALL IT A WINDOW and NO APOCALYPSE

“Look out, the Martians have landed! And they’re having a poetic romp with Laura Madeline Wiseman. Her narrator opens the door ‘with a bowl of chocolate, suckers and quarters,’ and the little green creatures move right into her house, her garden, her outings, her community… even her mind. By the end of this quirky, imaginative, and well-researched collection, you’ll wonder whether we all indeed carry around our own Martians.”
– Ellaraine Lockie, author of STROKING DAVID’S LEG and COFFEE HOUSE CONFESSIONS

“AMERICAN GALACTIC is a reminder that good astronomers and great poets are driven by imagination. These interplanetary poems are rich with it, taking the reader on a trip to new, unexplored landscapes with heart and humor. Playfulness, curiosity and surprise infuse the poems, in which Laura Madeline Wiseman puts the reader right up front in the face of ‘the other,’ to confront a stranger, strangely familiar.”
– Sarah J. Sloat, author of HOME BODIES and INKSUITE

“The Martians have landed in AMERICAN GALACTIC, and the more Wiseman reveals about those little green aliens and their odd habits, the more we learn about our own human nature. This collection is more fun than a Cold War sci-fi flick plus a bag of buttered popcorn.”
– Julie Kane, author of RHYTHM AND BOOZE and PAPER BULLETS

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 2014

About the author

Laura Madeline Wiseman's latest books are Velocipede, published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press and Through A Certain Forest published by BlazeVOX [books]. Her collaboratively written chapbook with Andrea Blythe, Every Girl Becomes the Wolf is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

She is also the author of the full length collections of poetry An Apparently Impossible Adventure (BlazeVOX [books], 2016), Drink (BlazeVOX [books], 2015), Wake (Aldrich Press, 2015), Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink, 2014), American Galactic (Martian Lit, 2014), Queen of the Platform (Anaphora Literary Press, 2013) and Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012).

Her collaborative books are People Like Cats with Chuka Susan Chesney, (Red Dashboard, LCC in 2016), Leaves of Absence with artist Sally Deskins (Red Dashboard, LCC, 2016), The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters with artist Lauren Rinaldi (Les Femmes Folles, 2015, and Intimates and Fools (Les Femmes Folles, 2014) with artist Sally Deskins.

Her flash novel is The Bottle Opener (Red Dashboard, LCC 2014).

Her letterpress books are Unclose The Door (Gold Quoin Press, 2012) and Farm Hands (Gold Quoin Press, 2012).

Her chapbooks are Threnody (Porkbelly Press, 2014), Spindrift (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), Stranger Still (Finishing Line Press, 2013, First Wife (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013), Men and Their Whims (Writing Knights Press, 2013), She Who Loves Her Father (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), and My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). Her early DIY chapbooks include Plastic Matches (2002).

She is also the editor of Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2017) and Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013).

Her work has appeared in Margie, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Feminist Studies, Mid-American Review, Blackbird, 13th Moon, Cream City Review, Poet Lore and elsewhere. Awards and grants include the Academy of American Poets Award and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation grant. Currently, she teaches writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Reviews

[Adam Wagler · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're ever read The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth: A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race, saw ET in the theaters as a kid, or watched Star Wars, you'll appreciate this book--extraterrestrial life, UFOs, abductions. American Galactic has the attitude of Princess Leia, plenty of cute alien encounters of little girl Drew Barrymore, and lots of the tongue-in-cheek, irony of Jon Stewart.

I don't know about you, but poetry collections that make you laugh are the ones I buy. I like poetry that is accessible, talks to me as a citizen of pop culture, and offers a fresh perspective on icons on sci-fi--Mars, the red planet, and those creatures, the Martians, who live there.

It's fun.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wiseman writes, “…Martians are not alive and yet they’re not, not alive…” True to this blurry form, fantasies, facts and pop culture references of Martians are explored with Wiseman’s trademark tact, intimate detail and character development in American Galactic, an expansion of her chapbook, Stranger Still. The cover art echoes her wit and play, but too, Wiseman seriously upends the familiar “long-limbed,” “green-handed,” “big-eyed” story into a homey narrative speaking to humans’ real dark fears—what, you’ll have to read to find out!

[McKenzie Tozan · Rating 5 out of 5]

We’ve all been there—wondered about life, the afterlife, and whether there could be life on other planets. These are interesting questions, because, to the common wonderer (someone who isn’t a scientist or theologist, and someone who hasn’t somehow miraculously died and come back to life, or, you know, been snapped up by aliens and sent back a millisecond later), they are relatively unanswerable. Somehow, the proof is always disproven, and, for some, going on faith just isn’t enough. And while I am one who chooses to have faith, about a variety of “unprovable” things, I do find myself asking questions of the extraterrestrial sort and am interested when these are presented in a creative form… but I am especially interested when the artist can portray something new to me on the subject, something beyond, “I don’t believe in aliens” or “There’s nothing truly out there to disprove my beliefs.” Laura Madeline Wiseman does an impeccably wonderful service in providing a wide scope of possibility on the subject of extraterrestrials/aliens/martians/whatever else you would like to call “them,” as well as a broader look into the gray areas of our beliefs.

Typically, I think of the Martian-phenomenon as being three-sided, and these three sides tend to be starkly black and white: 1.) those who do not believe in Martians, 2.) those who do believe in Martians and see them as a threat, and 3.) those who believe in a gentler, coexisting type of Martian… and then I read this collection of poems. I am absolutely in love with how this collection is working and how it pushes against our expectations; in particular, what I find so darn compelling about this project is the strangeness it invites in, as well as the blurring of the three-sided lines. For example, here is a set of horribly-haunting lines (I think I’m going to have to check my closets before I can sleep tonight) from Wiseman’s poem, “Creed: The Mission”:

Believe in versions of the truth.
Breathe. Hold hands. Hug. Recycle.
Hope that if there are Martians,
they wouldn’t be interested in you.

In the final stanza of “Creed,” we see a series of typically-normal behaviors—here is how we play human—which is then followed by a pair of lines that function as a warning; it implies, if the Martians take interest, there will be consequences. Keep out of sight, stay low, act normal, you’ll be fine. And what is so compelling about this move, about this warning, is the mixture of positive, negative and foreboding references throughout this collection. Despite the curiosity of Martians, and the depictions of these creatures as potentially-gentle, there is also this looming possibility of danger, of being noticed, and of things happening as a result of being noticed.

And perhaps what exaggerates this possibility even further, and makes it even more creepy (definitely checking the closets, the more I think about it), is Wiseman’s established isolation: whether we are imagining space as a sharp void, or witness a feminine being under the knife, or imagine our neighbors avoiding the observation of the Newcomers, these settings and beings operate as quiet and empty, nonintegrated floating objects—as if there were nothing to hide behind, and certainly no one to save us.

Not to mention my other favorite part of this collection, which integrates perfectly with this concept of isolation—Wiseman’s blurring of what makes a Martian a Martian, what makes us become the other, which places us ever closer to beings that could notice us. There is such an easy blurring that happens that makes us less like us and more like a predator—I’m thinking right now of a really great moment in Wiseman’s poem, “Getting Out of Here,” where, upon ending, we see government involvement, as a means to relocate us from one world to another:

And now I learn, that down the street,
NASA plants lettuce in a lunar greenhouse
to practice gardening in outer-space.

Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that so strange? And yet it makes all the sense in the world—whether or not NASA is involved, whether or not there are lunar plantations, there is still the fact that there is an easily-crossed line between prey and predator, between us and other. One of my favorite poems from the collection (actually, perhaps, my favorite) performs such a careful exploration of what it means to observe, to guess and make assumptions, and to take action, all of which can take on a deeply-ominous feel.

FIRST CONTACT

These creatures are living Martians.
—Octavia E. Butler

When the first Martians knock, I open the door
with a bowl of chocolate, suckers, and quarters.

These Martians are typical Martians: green skin,
long, thin limbs, and maybe three-feet-tall.

The Martian eyes glitter. I ask, Who are you?
The Martians stay mute. Then a Fairy, Superman,

and two Military Specialists crowd the porch
holding plastic gourds. I extend the bowl of candy.

Thank you! says the Fairy whose wings shiver.
She dashes down the steps into the night.

Then Superman, the military, they all leave,
but the Martians remain. I ask, Where’s your mom?

I scan the street and note my neighbors
on their lawn pretending to be stuffed dummies.

As the Fairy climbs their driveway, they growl.
I study the Martians, glance up and down the street.

I do what any normal type person might do.
I take the limp hands and pull the Martians inside.

In this poem, which is so swiftly steeped in the other, we are preserved in this extremely isolated moment; it is as if no one is watching, and no one can help lead these children? martians? home. This is largely what I mean when I say isolation: that, while there may be other living things nearby, within sight, within hearing range, actions are not being performed to change the situation or to do anything more than observe.

Laura Madeline Wiseman has truly done something wonderful here; the fact that she’s got me thinking about otherness, isolation and martians on a sleeting day in March, and the fact that her poems are requiring me to check my closets and hallways before I can sleep restfully tonight, are both blessings and compliments—to her writing, and to the fact that I had the opportunity to read her poems. Please sit down and take some times with American Galactic; it really is beautiful.

[Nathaniel Tower · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic glance into other worlds

Laura Madeline Wiseman has crafted a brilliant collection of poems that cause wonder and awe. The poems move quickly and tell vivid stories of Martians, space, and science. Reading these poems is like visiting another planet. Each poem is carefully crafted and reads like a seamless transition into the next. It is obvious that Wiseman has researched the topics of space and aliens, but the collection is much deeper than a group of science fiction musings. These poems ask deep and personal questions about existence and purpose, leaving almost any reader with a better understanding of self and the world. Wiseman has made a believer out of me.