First of all, what a gorgeous title! It is both eye-catching and very appropriate for an anthology of modern speculative poems about the universe.

Because what is poetry but the heartbeat of reality?

The book is edited by Emily Hockaday and is made up of 5 general chapters. There was a cohesiveness to the parts and ordering of the poems, but nothing too distinct. This is a great book to have on your nightstand so that you can flip open a random poem and ponder over your existence in this vast universe.

As with almost all anthologies, there were some poems that stood out for me more than others.

My favorite poems were:
Mostly Hydrogen by Jack Martin
Postulate 2 by Timons Esaias
Sparking the Matter by Tod McCoy
Almost Certainly a Time Traveler by Jarod K. Anderson
At the Natural History Museum by Bruce Boston
All the Weight by Holly Day
Leaving by Bruce McAllister
Quantum Entanglement by Fred D. White
Music Remembers by Ashok K. Banker
The impending apocalypse helps me maintain perspective by Steven Dondlinger
Terra Incognita by Fred D. White
Continuum by G.O. Clark
Your Homeworls is Gone by Leslie J. Anderson

I am not a massive poetry fan, but I have read the odd speculative fiction poetry. Emphasis on odd. Still, I have a reading buddy who loves specfic poetry and I got the Netgalley of this book.

Here is the first poem of this collection as a teaser:

MOSTLY HYDROGEN
Jack Martin

Somewhere between Earth’s axis
and the hippocampus, a line draws
swimmers into water. This is
outer space, blue cloth over borders
with music notes in black enameled writing.
This is how memory works. This is how:
a large system of stars, gas, dust,
and dark matter orbits a common center.
Deep in the ice, bodies get stuck
reaching for the anterograde.
Each meadowlark song is a series
of green sparks. Oh, vastness,
I’ve forgotten how to be where I am.

Some of the poems were a complete mystery for me, as I lacked historical context or knowledge of the underlying physics. I struggled to relate. And that was true for the majority of poems in this collection. I assume that it‘s probably me and not the poems.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher or author through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

This a collection of poems about science. As a science and art lover, I enjoyed the juxtaposition of these through these poems. Some of the poems would sound more meaningful to those who are familiar with the concepts/people mentioned in the poems. I would have like to read more poems on more topics. Glad to have been introduced to Ashok Banker’s work.

[Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this anthology, in exchange for an honest review.]

This generously sized anthology collects poems from ten years (2012-2022) of Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact, as selected by Senior Managing Editor Emily Hockaday. As Hockaday also possesses an MFA in poetry (from NYU), one might expect the selections to be a bit different than the standard run -- if there is such a thing! -- of speculative poetry.

One would not be wrong. To begin with, there are both heavy-hitting SF names -- Jane Yolen and Joe Haldeman among others -- and notable speculative poets like Bruce Boston, Robert Frazier, G.O. Clark, Jessy Randall, Mary Soon Lee, and Jennifer Crow. The poems themselves are organized in five sections ranging from completely science-based themes to hard SF, time travel, space travel, and the complex intersections of human nature and future existence. Overall quality is consistently high, though the science poems in particular may be a little opaque for some (or most) readers. Folks, that's what Wikipedia is for. I resorted to it several times during my reading, and was always rewarded with a deeper understanding of the poem in question.

The multi-layered nature of most of these poems -- even the staunchest hard science ones -- is every bit as evident as it is in modern mainstream verse. And, like modern mainstream anthologies, the lover of formal verse will find very little of it here. This was one of my few complaints about this anthology, however, and primarily a matter of personal taste.

Overall, this anthology is a valuable addition to the libraries of both SF readers and poetry lovers, whether they happen to be both or not. Unless one regularly reads Asimov's or Analog, most of the work here is likely to be unfamiliar. Highly recommended.

"The Heartbeat of the Universe" is a very interesting poetry collection.

One of its most striking aspects is its ability to seamlessly blend the grandeur of the cosmos with intimate experiences of everyday life, by featuring a range of poems that resonate with a sense of wonder, and very thoughtful introspection.

From celestial bodies dancing in the night sky to the gentle rhythms of the human heart, the imagery present in the collection's poems is
generally evocative, painting a vivid portrait of the universe and our place within it.

It also intertwines, more effectively than not, themes of love, loss, hope, and introspection, inviting readers to ponder the mysteries of the universe and the complexities of the human heart.

I felt that this collection of poetry was very profound and contained many metaphors that readers can connect with. The different fields of science that were mentioned, such as astrology, archaeology, and chemistry, were quite effective in their way of connecting science to emotion. My main complaints would be the repetition of titles regarding the subject of time travel, as well as certain poems that I felt were less strong than others. Along with this, there were frequent themes about love, which came off as sort of random in some of the pieces. Overall, I enjoyed the feelings that were invoked while reading through these pieces, and it is definitely worth the read for those who love outer space and greater thoughts on the universe.

A decent collection of poems. As is typical with anthologies, I liked some poems over others but the overall experience was a nice one. I enjoyed the speculative theme of the collection and can see myself dipping in and out of it in the future. Not my favourite read but still a worth while one.

I love speculative poetry but it’s a hard sell to both SFF fans and poetry fans. This collection will probably end up being my new go-to recommendation for introducing people to the genre. I normally think the organization of poetry anthologies is quite arbitrary but here they’re very thoughtfully categorized and pair nicely with one another so the shifts in tone and topic are smooth. I would pay for my own copy of this, there’s no higher compliment for an ARC than that! One complaint: the cover is bad. It’s dark and muddy and altogether just too generic.

This set of poets were mediocre at best, I was sucked into the collection with what I thought was going to carry all the way through the collection which in fact it did not. I am going to try to be as positive as possible during this review however, I feel as if one poem in this collection could be seen as offensive to a female as it came off a bit sexist. I struggled to keep reading the collection at one time because I felt like I could not visualize what the poets were trying to portray to us as a reader. Thank you to the publisher for allowing me the chance to read this.

I don't read much speculative poetry, but I may have to start. Just as with most anthologies, there were poems here that I loved, others I was indifferent to, and others I didn't understand at all! And yet...it was fascinating to read such a variety of poems with the thrum of science and science fiction running through them. Just a few favorites are "After National Geographic,"Archaeologists Uncover Bones, Bifocals, a Tricycle," "What a Time Traveler Needs Most," and "Time Traveler at the Grocery Store Circa 1992." Most of the ones I love most have a bit of a haunting, ominous feel to them. And they all come back to human-ness, to emotions, resonating in the end.

Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a collection of speculative fiction poems that I had high hopes for Like many anthologies I felt that some poems exceeded my expectations and some feel flat. The Heartbeat of the Universe offers a diverse range of poetic approaches and perspectives on themes ranging from hard science through mundane moments of life to reflections on broader societal structures.

I thought the way the book was organised worked well but might make some readers put the book down thinking it isn't the genre for them. So for all hard sci-fi or traditional spec fic writers I would urge you to stick with it past 80 pages. Why? Because the book is divided into thematic sections. The first half focuses more on abstract science-related themes which I struggled to get into but the latter half delves deeply into more traditional science fiction that critiques life and society. If you like Christie Nogles work then you’ll love the second half of this book.

Like many others I found the poem about a taxi ride after a flood to be particularly breathtaking!

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Thankyou Netgalley for the advanced reader copy of this book.

The Heartbeat of the Universe by Emily Hockaday, 110 pages. POETRY. Interstellar Flight Press, 2024. $10.
Language: PG (1 swear, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW
Hockaday believes that poetry is not limited by reality or literalness, and the poems in this collection illustrate her belief. With facts and emotions meeting over topics of identity, love, discrimination, hope, family, time, and more, there is a poem for everyone.
I loved the meeting point between science and creativity that these poets embrace, though overall only a couple of the poems spoke to me. The concept was enjoyable. The mature content rating is for mentions of alcohol and sexual harassment. The violence rating is for mentions of assault.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

This collection brings together the poetry published in Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact 2012–2022. I wanted to love this, I really did, and while some of the poetry is excellent, there is a lot of hackneyed stuff too, some of which I would have thought to be from a much earlier period, when SFF poetry was often really not good. Despite this, I recommend this to anyone with an interest in speculative poetry, to see what's been done and what's more recent in terms of themes, ideas, and approaches.

The Heartbeat of the universe is a collection of poems by different authors From the genre of science fiction and expeculative poetry.

To this day, I thought I didn't like poetry, but I discovered that what I don't like is romantic poetry and until I read this anthology I thought that was the only kind of poetry that existed.

There's no way I can leave a review of each of the poems, it would be too long 😅
But, if you're a fan of science fiction or expeculative fiction, this anthology might be of interest to you.

Some of my favorite are:
Leaving by Bruce Mc Allister
Hypothesis/Assertion by Daniel D. Villani
Taxi Ride by Ian Goh
Past Pluto by Eric Pinder

I enjoyed reading it, it was something out of my comfort zone and I'm glad I gave it the opportunity.

this uses the poems perfectly, I enjoyed the idea of what was going on in the scifi element. I enjoyed everything that I wanted and enjoyed in the genre. It worked with everything that I was looking. It worked with everything that I wanted and glad I read this.

A beautiful collection of poems to transport you across the universe in a thought-provoking journey. I've always loved space and science fictions, but haven't dabbled in much poetry reading. This book was a great bridge between them and there's something for everyone. Some poems were weird, some were emotional, and some were even educational. I enjoyed the journey with this book, thank Netgalley & the publisher for the ARC ebook. I would read more from this collection in the future.

One of the first books I ever bought, with the money I made from my first part-time job, was a collection of poems.
I've been chasing that high ever since. Over the years I have collected several collections of poems and more often than not, I need to be in a specific mindset before reading them. I tend to be a moody and melancholy person and reading poetry about whatever negative thing I'm going through, is a big hobby for me. Finding a collection of poems that is not specific to one kind of (bad) mood and me liking it, doesn't happen a lot.

HOWEVER, this one did it. Not going to lie, some of these poems made me feel like I should have paid more attention in school, but other poems made me feel like no one had ever quite understood me as much as the author had. The authors and topics are quite diverse, even though most (all?) have a background in science fiction. I believe there's a poem in here for everyone.

This is the book that every poetry person needs, especially those who do not yet love science. This is also the book that every science person needs, especially those who do not yet love poetry. And for those lucky ones already within the Venn diagram overlap of these two areas, this book will be a particular delight to discover.

My favorite poems from this book, in order of their appearance:
- "What A Time Traveler Needs Most" by Jane Yolen (quote: "What a time traveler needs most / when going back to childhood: / a solid plan that can be forgot")
- "Apocastasis" by Jennifer Crow (quote: "Given time enough, that egg will unbreak itself.")
- "Quantum Entanglement" by Ken Posner (quote: "Each set of us / Has come to the end of our Universe / Expecting an edge of cosmic brilliance // And found it is the middle.")
- "The Tsuchinoko Always Lies" by Megan Branning (quote: "Tell me raindrops can be filled with pearls.")

- Bonus points for the light-hearted fun of "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman" by Ron Koertge, which proves that poetry can be a mischievous delight.

***Publisher, I hope you read this note! You have a major error in your TOC. The Jane Yolen poem is missing its attribution, and the title instead runs into the title of the next poem to look like one combined poem title.***

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC for unbiased review.

Thank you IFP and NetGalley for the ARC.

I enjoyed this poetry collection a lot. It was quite diverse in form and subject matter, and, though I admit there were many poems that failed to resonate with me (which inevitably happens with highly subjective art like poetry), there were enough gems to make me think and feel deeply. Perhaps the collection could be further accentuated or elevated by including art or additional notes/introductions for each section.

Shouting out a few poems I particularly enjoyed:
Taxi Ride by Ian Goh
Ansibles by Ursula Whitcher
Final Dispatch by Robert Frazier
The Impending Apocalypse Helps Me Maintain Perspective by Steven Dondlinger

I did not realize that this was an anthology of contemporary-style poetry, and while I don't usually read much of this genre I still found this compilation to be relatively enjoyable! I think that it would be really interesting if there would be a little summary/epigraph before each section ('The Sum of Broken Parts', 'Impressions in Time', etc.) that would explain a little bit of what that specific collection is trying to portray instead of leaving that to the readers. I completely understand that poetry is very much up to interpretation, but it could potentially be interesting to see what the editor has to say about those sections, other than what is said in the introduction.

I enjoyed many of the poems in the anthology, particularly 'Collisions' by Kathryn Fritz because of her lyrical flow of the poem and the word choice that really helped me picture what she was writing about. I also enjoyed 'Leaving' by Bruce McAllister because even though it was short, it really resonated with how I felt in the past and even currently. Speculative fiction especially when its represented through fantastical or futuristic genres, has always been interesting and fascinating to read and I find that this anthology really allows readers to explore different forms of it!