Like a Treen in a disabled spaceship

Physalis

Whatever happened to lyric poetry? Where are the poets of yesteryear? Often are these questions asked at the Old Entomologist, followed shortly by questions like "Why are you such loonies?" and "When do you propose to pay off your bar tab?" Which means that it is time to order another round of "Cape Gose-berry" Goslar-style sour beer (with Physalis peruviana for vitamin C) and change the subject.

According to Pohl and Kornbluth [1952], anyone "capable of putting together words that stir and move and sing" has found a comfortable niche in the advertising industry, one more productive and lucrative than versifying could offer. But that statement is no longer operative... these days, all the true poets have become predatory publishers, where they exercise their word-smithy skills in the demanding, abbreviated metier of journal titles.


Thus the International Journal of Recent and Futuristic Cryogenics Engineering. Only eight words, but so condensed, so evocative! Imagine the work that went into choosing those eight words. In the mind they exfoliate and effloresce like vacuum flowers, conjuring images of Futurity the way it used to be, all nuclear-powered zeppelins and the monolithic towers and 30th-floor ped-ways of Metropolis...


...and bowler-hatted Treens on the #93 Holborn Helibus...

sky-cycles and streamlining, monorails and utility suits...

They conjure a Dan Dare plot-line, possibly involving the capture and cryogenic preservation of the Pilot of the Future.
The unsung genius behind "A D Publication" is productive, too, with a further 55 titles... although an element of weary repetition creeps in, and most of them involve Futuristic Management, Futuristic Technology, Futuristic Engineering, and other expressions of the epithet. Nothing could be more future-looking than a loosely-codified collection of Dark Ages superstitions and conmanship, so we should not forget the International Journal of Recent and Futuristic Ayurveda Science.

But crucially, the IJoR&FCE is the only one whose Raputed Editor Board consists of a mysterious Dr Z. Can one speculate that this is a pseudonym adopted by the Mekon in the course of his nefarious schemes? It would be irresponsible not to.

The Riddled Universal Journal of Journal-Title Poetics and Prosody solicits readers' submissions, at a purely nominal publication fee, all contributions to undergo rigorous and prestigious double-blind peer review from our editoral panel.


BELOW: Not two, not four, but three different visions of Futurity, because that is how we roll at Riddled.