Alien poems are all the rage

September 14, 2008 9:04 PM

Searching for a poem about aliens justifying their conquer of a "new world" - ours.

The terms I remember (alien, new world, poem) are vague enough that my googlefu fails me. This poem involved aliens visiting Earth and killing all us humans, but justifying it by talking about the happiness they would now discover here and how we were nothing like them. It uses a lot of made-up scifi words.

Obviously, it's meant to strongly parallel the massacre of Native American tribes in America (and other similar historical events.) I'm reasonably certain it's called "The New World."

posted by Solon and Thanks to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Might it be The New World by Suzanne Gardinier? It is a poem, but a book-length one. Perhaps you read an excerpt? When did you read this poem?
posted by iconomy at 9:24 PM on September 14, 2008

It's a similar concept, but I'm fairly certain that's not it. This poem seemed to have a very clear beginning and end. I read it a few years ago in a poetry anthology textbook for an AP English class.

Actually, I know I first read it in an one of the newer editions of Perrine's Sound and Sense. I'm going to see if I can find a list of all included poems - the older edition on google books doesn't include the poem I'm looking for.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:33 PM on September 14, 2008

Looks like this could be it: Discovery of the New World, by Carter Revard, featured in this edition of Perrine's Sound and Sense.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:45 AM on September 15, 2008

Yes, that's it (or at least part of it.) Many thanks!
posted by Solon and Thanks at 11:40 AM on September 16, 2008