Beyond Earth's Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight

"Editors Johnson and Cokinos have created a profoundly stirring evocation of the glory and tragedy of spaceflight that lets us better see not only worlds beyond but also ourselves."-Lee Billings, Scientific American

"Only two of the contributors to this soaring, adroitly curated anthology actually traveled in space, but nothing stops the rest of them from vaulting skyward on a pillar of words, with a potent gravity-assist from their emotions."-Dava Sobel, author of Galileo's Daughter and The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars

"This anthology is expansive, profound, exhilarating, thought-provoking, entertaining, and informative. For someone like this reader - who would not pick up a book on the history of space flight unless it brimmed with pretty pictures-it's the perfect route to reviewing space flight history and considering space possibilities. And bonus: it also contains pretty pictures."-Christine Wald-Hopkins, Arizona Daily Star

"When math and prose won't move our leadership, we hope to nudge them with poetry and song. Delightful and inspiring, kudos to editors. Now I am recharged and ready to go back to my drawing board. No coffee needed. Time to shape and tame and ride those sturdy steel fire-breathing dragons to take us to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Oh, how I wish to touch and smell the pink snows on Titan. . . ."-Madhu Thangavelu, University of Southern California

"Beyond Earth's Edge is an expansive anthology that takes on the topics of space, spaceflight, outer space, otherworldliness, and what it means to be inhabitants of Planet Earth imagining a world beyond. With an incredible aesthetic range and consistent sense of wonder, this anthology rekindles the imaginative power of poetry that both helps us see beyond ourselves and helps us see ourselves more clearly."-Matthew Shenoda, author of Somewhere Else

"Early commentators, schooled in the art of skepticism,
Complained that the individuals assigned to
Describe space to the rest of us
Failed to capture its majesty.
Ninety-one poems later
That is thankfully
No longer true.
Journalists criticized the earliest space explorers, frequently trained as engineers. They lacked the ability to capture the poetry of space, the journalists said. Turns out the poets were always there, assembled here in a wonderful complement to all the mission reports and technical manuals."-Howard E. McCurdy, author of Space and the American Imagination