Poetry Sunday: paper dragons, new poetry group, poetry zine

paper dragons

blue & yellow folded paper dragons
sail away in an indigo Tintenfaß
dragons dangerous yet delicate
for they cannot breathe fire
and live

(c) Nissa Annakindt 1990

The word 'Tintenfaß is German for 'inkwell'. The funny letter at the end is pronounced like 's'.  This is the origin of the poem: one day I was looking through a mail order catalog from Dover Books and came across several advertised books about Origami, the Japanese art of folding paper. One of the book descriptions must have mentioned that it gave instructions for making Origami dragons. And so this poem kind of poured out as poetry often did in those days.

This is one of the poems in my poetry book, Where the Opium Cactus Grows.  Shared in Poetry Pantry #159 over at Poets United.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Poetry Group, Poetry Zine

For a couple of years, some time ago, I used to edit a zine. It was something I liked to do and wasn't half bad at. But the printing and postage cost a lot.

When I self-published my poetry book on Lulu.com, I first began to get the idea that Lulu.com might be a great way to publish a zine. But it took me a while to get to the idea of doing a poetry zine.

The advantage of doing it as a Lulu.com book is that the 'zine' will be a nicely printed book with a cover, and it won't cost me a fortune making that happen. I wouldn't be able to pay in contributors' copies--- the poets would have to buy their own copy/copies.

Now, the hard part would be to find some poets who write what I could recognize as quality work. So I thought of starting a Facebook group for poets. Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/479819908761898/

Both the group and the future zine are called 'Red Explosions'--- a line from an old poem of mine--- because it expresses what I want--- poems with something vivid, explosive, strange, or interesting. Not a bland collection of words as in:

my girlfriend
dumped me,
I feel
like sh*t
and want
to
die
die
die

(If you want to see further examples of what I, perhaps due to a lack of mental health, think of as poetry, you might go to my book on Amazon.com and look at the free preview there at some of the poems I've written.)

While I am not accepting submissions just yet, if you are interested in submitting to the zine, you might do well to join the Facebook group so you can share poems there. If I like your stuff enough, I will probably ask you to submit when the time comes.

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Killing People with Science Fiction's Non-Lethal Weaponry

My first encounter with the concept of non-lethal weapons was the Star Trek phaser. You could set a phaser to stun, or you could set it to kill and seriously vaporize a guy.  

But even in the Star Trek universe phasers set to stun could go wrong and then you'd hear those immortal words, "He's dead, Jim."

How could that happen? Well, people differ in their physiology and state of health. It's like giving people sedatives. A dose that would subdue a raging NFL player might kill a little old lady with a heart condition. The same thing happens with any kind of stunning weapon. Force that can stun a strong person will kill other people.

In real-world efforts to create stunning weapons (such as tasers), that is a problem. No stunning weapon yet made that is effective enough to stop most people is harmless to all people, and fatalities have resulted. In addition, some experimental non-lethal weapons can cause permanent damage to a person.

In science fictional worlds, the fatal possibilities of a stunning weapon are enhanced if the weapon is also used on various types of aliens. No one stunning weapon can work on every possible type of alien without killing some of them routinely.

A stunning weapon with multiple settings might deal with this problem. You might have your team leaders order phaser setting 1 for alien race A, and phaser setting 2 for alien race B. That will help, a little. But there will still be the possibility of killing when you don't intend to, and so you can't really use your non-lethal weapon routinely on folks you absolutely cannot kill for some reason.

What about a non-lethal 'smart weapon'?  It would scan the oncoming target and know exactly how much 'ooomph' to give to the stunning weapon. This would work to keep your stunning weapon stun-only. But the other implications of the technology must not be ignored.

You cannot, for example, have your 'smart weapon' stunner render aliens unconscious with precision, drag the unconscious alien to the sickbay, and have your ship's doc complain he can make no sense of the alien's physiology. Your smart weapon has already made sense out of that alien physiology in seconds. You can not have mystery aliens if you have 100% accurate non-lethal smart weapons.

In addition to the problem of your non-lethal weapon killing when not intended, there is an equal and opposite problem. You fire a stunning weapon at some raging maniac, and he doesn't go down. This is a major problem with real-world non-lethal weapons, and a reason why they are popular with policemen working in groups--- where some can carry more lethal weapons--- than they are for the lone person needing self defense. The last thing a vulnerable person wants to do is to get an attacker madder by firing an ineffective stunning weapon at them.

Your science fiction crew will, therefore, need lethal force as a backup, as in the Star Trek phaser which could be set to stun or to kill. Unless they are absolute pacifists in which case they will regularly experience casualties because of that stand.

What about non-lethal magical weapons/spells in fantasy worlds? Realism dictates that the 100% effective stunning spell/weapon would be unlikely. Now, if you have a fantasy world where only a tiny caste of wizards can do magic at all you might decide they can stun their enemies accurately--- but likely other wizards can defend against it. If, however, in your magical world any schoolchild with a magic wand can yell 'stupefy!' in an attempt to stun people, it is realistic to portray this stunning effort as variable in effect. The untrained child-wizard with indifferent level of Gifts might not achieve stunning effect at all, or do so only briefly, while the more trained person can stun effectively and for a sufficient amount of time to accomplish the goal.

Back to science fiction. If non-lethal weapons are so problematic, why have them at all? One major reason is the need to subdue people on board starships. You do NOT want to fire pistols on board the Enterprise and get the equipment damaged from stray bullets and shrapnel. A stunning weapon might at first be developed for shipboard use, and then migrate outward for situations where stunning is the only effective approach.

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Poetry Sunday: See, a Fishing Junk

See, a Fishing Junk
a sijo

See, a fishing junk floats to Kowloon
& I saw a typhoon drinking the harbor.
Stop, I said, do not drink all the water
For the sake of the fishing junk.

But the typhoon drank on
For the sake of relative humidity.

(c) Nissa Annakindt Dec. 13, 2012

One of my more recent poems, and thus not included in my book When the Opium Cactus grows. I will probably be sharing it in the poetry group Red Explosions Poetry Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/479819908761898 Please consider joining the group if you write poetry.

Shared on Poetry Pantry #158.

The kitten in the picture is Anthony, who decided to take a nap in the garbage can the other day. He is named after Saint Anthony, who found kitten Anthony and his sister when they went missing for a week. 

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Sunday Poem: malison d'etre

As I may have mentioned, I'm doing most of my blogging on Facebook these days, at the link given at the bottom of the page. But I still want to post my poem for Poetry Pantry at Poets United, and so I posted the poem on my Facebook and added my poem to the Poetry Pantry linky. And I thought I'd better post links to the poem here. Click on the poem title to read the poem.

malison d'etre


jonathan is a bat out
of hell
which explains his crispy singed
wings
and his
expression of perpetual exasperation
and why he sleeps
hanging over the heat register
on cold nights
he's working on a PhD
in social work
but what he really
wants is to
be a rock star
like michael jackson
& madonna
strangely enough he cant stand baseball
or hippoptamuses


(c) Nissa Annakindt 1990

This poem is included in my book Where the Opium Cactus Grows.



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