Gay dating like never b4
Mothership Gay Dating, to me, is the incarnation of science fiction poetry, a literary genre established over the last forty years in response to the space race (culminating in Moon landings, building an international space station, mapping Mars ), and the need to come to terms with rapid progress in the worlds of scientific endeavour and our celebration of gay love.
Edward Lucie-Smith
A presiding genius behind this movement is Edward Lucie-Smith, art historian, poet, broadcaster, photographer, and prolific writer of over a hundred books, many of which address gay issues. His 1961 poetry book, A Tropical Childhood was written after joining the Group, an avant-garde poetry coterie, who sought to express themselves without ambiguity, using images of “clarity and concreteness” as he expresses it in his autobiography. However, Lucie-Smith was soon looking beyond rules and techniques to poetry as “a deliberate act of self-discovery.”
The Science Fiction Poetry Association ( founded in 1978 ), suggests sci-fi poetry is “poetry with some element of speculation in usually science fiction, fantasy or horror,” while some include Surrealism and pure science in its remit. For gay men who participate in a sci-fi themed gay dating site like this one, the possibilities for self-discovery are much higher than in the average competing quick- fuck sites. Crewmembers here are embarked on an imaginative venture which, it’s no exaggeration to say, softly heralds an evolutionary advance in human consciousness. It’s good for everyone to write poetry, but it’s even more important for gay men to live it.
In Holding Your Eight Hands: An Anthology Of Science Fiction Verse (published by rapp + whiting in 1970) and edited with poems by Lucie-Smith, there’s one by Mike Evans called We’ll All Be Spacemen Before We Die, which I particularly like, and it’s as simple and concise as the Group might have wished. The last verse refers to sleeping beneath “black velvet sheets” under an alien moon. It reminds me of a poem I wrote in my late teens when the gay world I longed for, living in an insular West Yorkshire town, seemed as far off as another planet. One verse stands out, describing a strong wind stripping leaves from the trees one moonlit autumn evening, and bearing them away like spaceships to the beckoning stars. It went:
as if on a mission rare
bound for speckled light
silver-green dimmed by distance
darkness out of sight
Looking back, it presciently described my future, having at long last arrived here on Mothership where I feel so safe.
By John Hartley
(c) Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
David’s note: Mothership Gay Dating started out as a sci-fi themed gay dating site, but over time we’ve broadened our scope to appeal to all gay guys, not just those who like sci fi!
