A wonderfully beautiful and thought provoking collection of poems that centres around science fiction, tales of the future, AI, the body and many more!

This was such a great read that any fan of poetry or sci-fi will appreciate. There is truly a poem for everyone in this collection. This book consists of poems written in many different forms and styles, from long to short, ones that tell us a story and others that will leave you with existential dread.

I would love to receive this as gift and will definitely be gifting it forward!

I had two absolutely favourites from this collection!
'Taxi Ride' by Ian Goh is a heartbreaking poem discussing the impact of a disaster on a town with the most beautiful of imagery.
'Somebody I used to love asks me who Marie Curie is' by Carly Rubin which discusses Marie Curie and how important of a figure she is and should remain to be.

The only thing I feel that would make this collection even more wonderful than what is already is, would be some illustrations and imagery that fit well with the poems. I felt like it was missing some detail throughout this collection.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for this wonderful ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this collection - two of my favourite things, science and poetry.

The poems themselves are brilliant and varied, the book has little cut up sections dedicated to different themes and areas of physics. This tickled all my favourite interests and I'm honestly jealous I wasn't a contributing poet!

The only slight thing that was off putting is that several of the poems say "he (or she)" which, as a poet, wasn't necessary, and as a female, took me out of the world for an eye roll. I'm pretty sure this was also only done by male contributors- please have a think about isolating your audience.

Other than that, absolutely stellar. Thoroughly enjoyed and would read again.

✨The Heartbeat of the Universe by Emily Hockaday✨

5🌟

(ARC PROVIDED BY NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR HONEST REVIEW)

Y’all already know I’m a sucker for poems. But tie astronomy and all things universe/space related and put that into beautiful poems- it’s sweet music to my ears.

These collections of poems have made me think of humanity, our own planet and the vastness of space in a whole new view and I can’t thank NetGalley enough for providing this ARC for me.

Thank you to Interstellar Flight Press an NetGalley for providing me with an E-Arc.

There were a number of pieces I liked in this collection, including:

-Somebody I used to Love Asks me Who Marie Curie is by Carly Rubin
-Time Traveler at the Grocery Store Circa 1992 by Kristian Macaron
-Taxi Ride by Ian Goh
-The Dogs of the Soviet Space Program by Christopher Cokinos
-Abyss Inside our Young Hearts by Yuliia Vereta
-Small Certainties by Sara Polsky
-In Theory by Rebecca Siegel

I was compelled most of all by the many scientific and speculative poems set in the context of mundane, domestic life.

The organization of the anthology made sense to me. It is broken up into five section on the topics of: sciences & mathematics, time travel, quantum physics, contact with otherworlds and astronomy.

There is much to enjoy about this collection, however, there were a number of poems that would begin on an interesting topic and then devolve into cliche romantic metaphor. I wish there would have been fewer of these pieces.

A collection of science fiction and adjacent poetry, The Heartbeat of the Universe includes some of my favorite writers. Yet it failed to really come together for me. There were individual poems which touched me deeply. Perhaps the collection would have benefited from artwork - there are years of cover art to choose from. Still, I would pick this up again. It perfectly dovetails with my interests. I would be thrilled if someone gave it to me as a gift. I’m enthusiastic about the idea of the collection. I know much thought went into the organization and structure of the collection but it did not feel - to me - like the individual poems were in conversation with each other. And yet, I will read as many of these collections as someone wants to publish. Thank you to the editor, publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC.

Really loved this, almost cried at multiple poems. Wanted to share a load of them with my wife because I loved them so much!

The Heartbeat of the Universe is a poetry collection with the common theme of science, and in particular those scientific fields declined to space.

There were lots of metaphors to find – which I rather liked, especially if they verged on subjects such as time travel or parallel universes... at least until they turned too heavy-handed – and different subjects of interest (scientific history, its people, some animals, and even the periodic table!).
Unfortunately the same couldn't be said of the order they were presented in, if such even existed. I appreciate some kind of sequitur in a collection, a logic (be it chronological or thematic or whatever else), some point-A to point-B to point-Z, if you catch my hint, but those poems were quite scattered. At the very least, even if I don't really get the most of the poems (I can honestly say I enjoyed a little more than ¼ of them), I still want to savor the fluidity of the text.

An interesting thing I found was how some of the verses reminded me of some sci-fi short stories I've read:
- Small Certainties by Sara Polsky > Your Orisons May Be Recorded by Laurie Penny;
- Music Remembers by Ashok K. Banker > The Last Truth by AnaMaria Curtis;
- First Contact by Stuart Greenhouse > The Anthropologist by Kathleen M. Sydney;
still, it's highly probable it was not intentional on the part of the authors, more of a Forer effect on my part.
What was intentional, however, was the one poem with a reference to Robert Frost – but it seemed more of a straight-up copy-and-paste-while-changing-some-words than a homage.

This was beautiful. Like - get up to share the poem you just read with the nearest possible person type of work.

I had high hopes from the description, and this collection was everything I wanted and more. I don't want to name favourites as the list goes on, but also different poems struck me for different reasons. Because of the expanse of symbolism and themes - there is something in here for literally anyone with a soul.

I am in debt to any book that can make me cry. I will be re-reading this for a long time.

This was a gripping read and I was intrigued by the characters. I will look out for more by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a free arc.
This was a quite nice collection of speculative science poems that I enjoyed.

so i don't usually reach for poetry but i wanted to try something new. this did not disappoint me, but as someone who is not very in-love with sci fi things, i was not the target audience. although, i recognized lots of references and even found myself pondering the words within this book. the collection itself was very well put together and made sense. i learned new things and understood things in a difference way. i would recommend this book to people who want to try something new and have a love for all things science. reading these beautiful words could change the way certain people think.

As a scifi nerd, I enjoyed myself. As a poetry nerd, I was a bit disappointed by the dearth of interesting poetic forms. There’s a lot of free verse — not that there’s anything wrong with free verse, but it’s a bit static in that regard.

Favorite entries are as follows:

Field Notes by Lola Haskins is an absolute banger, assuming one is comfortable referring to a prose-poem that buries political commentary in descriptions of ant colonies ‘a banger.’ I would assert that it is.

Taxi Ride by Ian Goh has some exceptional imagery of a city in the aftermath of a destructive flood.

Messaging the Dead by Betsy Aoki has a very unsettling take on the concept of AI and/or ghosts in the machine.

Wobble by Richard Schiffman does the thing I like in scifi where the science is an (in this case, directly stated) metaphor for some internal emotional parallel. It’s not particularly subtle but it’s well-phrased and bittersweet.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable collection. Pretty much what it says on the tin. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read an advance copy.

In an anthology spanning a decade, the task of shaping a sense of unity amidst diverse voices and themes is masterfully achieved by Editor Emily Hockaday. Hockaday orchestrates a smooth progression of verse even with the multiplicity of contributors. A thematic undercurrent of speculative fiction emerges as the binding force, weaving together disparate threads into a coherent narrative whole. In collections with multiple authors, it's common to find a mix of quality among the poems. While some pieces reached excellence, there are certainly moments of mediocrity or unpolished craftsmanship in The Heartbeat of the Universe. However, these shortcomings don't overshadow the overall strength of the volume.

Standout works include Kristian Macaron's "Time Traveller at the Grocery Store Circa 1992," with its quirky tone and evocative imagery, such as "You press / fingers into the bread loaf. It reminds you / of a body, already gone." Additionally, Bruce Boston's "When Words Take Flight" captivates with lines like "I explode to fractal feathers / beneath a semiotic sky / engraved with cloud runes" which is delightfully surreal. It's worth noting that the themes explored in these poems cater predominantly to enthusiasts of science and science fiction. Readers should anticipate some nerdy language, unconventional connections, and the occasional use of elevated vocabulary. Despite this specificity, and perhaps because of it, the collection offers a captivating journey through musings on physical phenomena and speculative concepts. With my background as a science fiction fan, I found the book quite enjoyable.

This was such a unique collection! The premise of a combination between science fiction and poetry caught my interest immediately and I can say that the book definitely lived up to my expectations. It discusses topics like loneliness, human connection, love and growing up from a fascinating and fresh perspective. Each poem was a mystery waiting to be revealed and I had a lot of fun reading them. Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an arc!

The Heartbeat of the Universe leans into that unexpected affinity between poetry and science as ways of examining the world around us and within us. Its poems run the gamut, from the cosmic to the subatomic, but throughout, they maintain a thoroughly human sense of wonder, vulnerability, and humor. Adding to the experience, editor Emily Hockaday arranges her selections with the precision of a scientist laying out a particularly elegant experiment.

There’s something for every poetic and scientific bent in The Heartbeat of the Universe. For science historians, there are poems that revisit the Chernobyl disaster (“Soft Collision” by Scott E. Green & Herb Kauderer), or reimagine the fate of the space dog Laika (“The Dogs of the Soviet Space Program” by Christopher Cokinos). For hopeless romantics, the poem “Hypothesis/Assertion” by Daniel D. Villani reads like a hyper-intellectual love note that invokes multiverses. For feminists, poems like “How to Go Twelfth” by Mary Soon Lee shine a light on the overlooked accomplishments of women in science.

I adored this collection—including the poems that were entirely too smart for me and my limited science background. The Heartbeat of the Universe reminded me mightily of the nonfiction book Figuring by Maria Popova, which I thought could have been subtitled, “Poets and Astronomers in Love.” That subtitle would fit here too.

My thanks to NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for providing me a copy of The Heartbeat of the Universe in exchange for my honest review.

This was an absolutely gorgeous read! As a poet myself, the things that got me into poetry were: speculative poetry and documentary poetics. This volume includes both, along with everything else one might expect from a poetry collection. Beautiful language and imagery, fun poetic forms, breathtaking moments...This book has it all! I found myself highlighting so many lines that I'll come back to when I need to put myself in touch with the universe.

I think that poetry itself deserves more attention, and within that, speculative poetry should be celebrated. I see speculative poetry as a way to bring in readers who may not have realized it was possible to delve into the realms of sci-fi within a poem. For that reason, this book is a perfect read for the avid poetry lover or someone new to the genre! I'm also impressed with the wide range of authors included, and the organization of the anthology that truly leads the reader through a journey. I could tell that the editor was very thoughtful in the creation of this work.

This collection is an excellent sampling of modern speculative poetry. I read a lot of it (but I often don’t get around to reading the poems from these particular magazines) and was pleased to find many familiar names here—people who are well-established in the field and whom I enjoy. However, I pleasantly jotted down some new names I’m completely unfamiliar with to hopefully delve into some other time!

The best thing about this book is the sheer variety of poems within. Many different themes are explored in different styles. Will every poem in this collection be to your taste? Absolutely not, but that’s the beauty of it. As the editor says in the foreword—these poems contain multitudes, braiding themes and ideas in a truly refreshing way.

If there’s any nitpick I have, it’s the somewhat limited selection. But this is of course a feature and deliberate limitation of the book—when you make a best-of of specific magazines you are of course limited to the poems from those magazines. I would love to see another modern poetry anthology from Interstellar Flight Press (probably the single best publisher in the field right now!) focusing on a bigger variety of voices, no repeated authors, across many different magazines, to truly showcase the state of modern speculative poetry.

Favorites:
- ARCHEOLOGISTS UNCOVER BONES, BIFOCALS, A TRICYLE by Steven Withrow
- BILLETS-DOUX by Brittany Hause
- ANSIBLES by Ursula Whitcher
- PACKING FOR THE AFTERLIFE by Mary Soon Lee
- MUSIC REMEMBERS by Ashok K. Banker

Thoughts: Who knew poems based on science fiction could be so beautiful? And these are. This is a lovely collection from some of the best SF writers. Like most collections, I didn’t “love” them all, but I did enjoy them all. Some were very short while others took you on a longer journey, but all were well written and unique.

Recommendation: Definitely recommended.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for this ARC. All opinions are as mine and are not influenced by anyone.

A collection of poems like a dazzling night sky, truly! Rarely have I encountered a collection in which I enjoy almost each and every poem, reading some of them twice immediately, then another three or four times. The Heartbeat of the Universe edited by Emily Hockaday puts together poems from the past decade of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and Analog Science Fiction, creating a superb, one-of-a-kind anthology. It is organized according to some recurring themes (time bending & time-travel, maps/far-away places, dispatches/messages through the universe) and it mixes scientific thinking & terms with poetic meanderings about life, love and almost everything else. I’ll try to select some of the lines that stayed with me, though that is almost impossible as each poem contained something unique or touching:

“If you once get bored with your gentle life, / we will book you a seat by our side. / There is enough night for everyone.” by Yuliia Vereta
“Every spring, the first red buds on / the apple trees surprise me, a kick in the / belly. The hum of the universe shocks me, / the pull of gravity and the way we keep / floating free.” by Rebecca Siegel
“Untugged by gravity, the heart becomes rounder, / floating like a red balloon / in the antechamber of an astronaut’s chest, / deformed by as much as 9.4%.” by Robert Broski
“Even computer-precise maos / distort the fractal reality of coastlines, / just as my hands must fail / in their longing to define and redefine / your body, protean as an ocean, / forever (gratefully so!) / beyond my or anyone else’s knowing.” by Fred D. White

Other favorite poems:
Somebody I used to love asks me who Marie Curie is by Carly Rubin, for the beauty with which it combines historical with personal fact.
Postulate 2 by Timons Esaias, for hitting hard and making me think about it again and again.
Hypothesis/Assertion by Daniel D. Villani, for being too sweet, just the kind of poem you’d read when in love.
Almost Certainly A Time Traveler by Jarod K. Anderson, for the way it marks with gratitude this one version of self/time.
Billets-doux by Brittany Hause, for its use of line and structure to tell a short, time-bending story of love.
Time Traveler At The Grocery Store Circa 1992 by Kristian Macaron, for exploring time-anxiety.
All the weight by Holly Day, for letting childish wonder get big.
Leaving by Bruce McAllister, for putting an alien spin to a familiar story in just a few words.
Messaging The Dead by Betsy Aoki, for considering the unknown After in a digital age.
All Saints Day by Lisa Bellamy, for the way it combines a great, heavy question of life with the mundane.
The Tsuchinoko Always Lies by Megan Branning, for the mythic rhythm of the language.
Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman by Ron Koertge, for the gentle visual image at the end of the poem.
Wobble by Richard Schiffman, for capturing the existential vibration of the heart.
Your Homeworld is Gone by Leslie J. Anderson, for the cosmic way it unpacks the self.

I really recommend this to every reader of poetry or science-fiction - I think it will make you fall in love with both, if you haven’t already.

Thanks Netgalley & Interstellar Flight Press for the e-ARC - opinions are my own entirely.

Thank you, NetGalley for providing me with this ARC! This collection was fabulous. I was surprised, nostalgic, so many different emotions, as you can expect from a great poetry collection. The poems were easy to read, and the whole thing felt very accessible. My favorite was the poem about someone who used to love someone who didn't know who Marie Curie was. I highly recommend this for everyone!