“The Moving Horizon Of Classless Harmonies” In Darko Suvin’s Poetry

The article discusses selected poetry by Darko Suvin against the background of his theoretical writings about science fiction, utopia and poetry. It argues that Suvin’s poetry estranges the ideological view of the present and history as an inevitable reproduction of injustice and alienation. The focus is on several poems included in the collections The Long March: Notes on the Way 1981–1984 (1987) and Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction, and Political Epistemology (2010), as well as in “Three Long Poems 2000–2016” (2016) and “Poems of Old Age (2002–17)” (2017) available on the author’s website.

1. Bloch, Ernst. Abschied von der Utopie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980. The Principle of Hope, vol. 1, trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice and Paul Knight. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1996.

2. Boynik, Sezgin and Suvin, Darko. "Communicating Vessels: Forms, Politics, History: Interview with Darko Suvin". Rab-Rab: Journal for Political and Formal Inquiries in Art, 2 (2015), vol. B: 5-37.

3. Đergović-Joksimović, Zorica. "The Poetry of Estrangement or Utopia Suviniana", Utopian Studies, 28.1 (2017): 45-71. CrossRef

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5. Jameson, Fredric. Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London and New York: Verso, 2005.

6. Moylan, Tom. Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.

7. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

8. "Locus, Horizon, and Orientation: The Concept of Possible Worlds as a Key to Utopian Studies", Utopian Studies, 1.2 (1990): 69-83.

9. "Besinnung and What May the Century Amount To: On or About or Because of Marc Angenot As Goad and Stimulus." The Yale Journal of Criticism, 17.2 (2004): 287-311. CrossRef

10. (2010a) "Introduction 2008: On Hollows, or an Alarmed Door", in Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction and Political Epistemology. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010. 1-15.

11. (2010b) "A Tractate on Dystopia 2001". Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction and Political Epistemology. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010. 381-403.

12. "Parables and Uses of a Stumbling Stone". Arkadia, 52.2 (2017): 272-300. CrossRef

13. "On Communism, Science Fiction and Utopia: The Blagoevgrad Theses". Mediations, 32.2 (2019): 139-160.

14. Communism, Poetry: Communicating Vessels (Insubordinate Writings 1999-2018). Toronto & Chicago: Political Animal Press, 2020.

15. Wegner, Phillip E. "Preface: Emerging from the Flood in Which We Are Sinking: Or, Reading with Darko Suvin (Again)", in Darko Suvin, Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction and Political Epistemology. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010. xv-xxxiii.

16. "Foreword: Crossing the Border with Darko Suvin". Paradoxa, 23 (2011): 9-19.

17. Darko Suvin's Poetry

18. The Long March. Willowdale ON: Hounslow Press, 1987. ["A Matter of Life and Death", "A Self Enlightened (In the Manner of Ching Shen-tan)", "Ancient Airs and Canadian Cars", "Be Still in Peace: A Valedictory Forbidding Mourning (Third Anniversary)", "Bear City Blues: A Triptych", "Counter-Projects (in Han-Shan's style)", "Crossing on the Left (Sonnet in Southern Sung Manner)", "Eo Rus, With a Catch", "Metacommentaries (Han-Shan style)", "Seven Songs of Our Times in Classical Chinese Styles", "The Present Past", and "To Her Hasty Lover (Ballad of Mo-Chou's Daughter)"].

19. Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction and Political Epistemology. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010. ["A Letter to My Friend, Disenchanted After 1968", "After the Fall", "I'm Into Your World", "Imagine a Fish", "In the Ruins of Leningrad: A Medieval Allegory", "Le Ceneri di Tito (Berlin Day, End of C20)", "Pillaging the Gnostics", "Shipwreck in Pannonia: A Sonnet with a Tail", "The Return of the Ancestors (End of March)", and "Visions off Yamada".]

20. "Three Long Poems 2000-2016". https://darkosuvin.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/poems-old-age-2002-17.pdf. (Accessed 1 August 2021). ["Ode in the Guise of the Most Famous Poetess Psapfo of Mytilene", "You, Giacomo Leopardi", and "Thus Spake the Bitter Muse: Do Not Profit by the Blood of Your Fellows! (A Pastiche)"].

21. "Poems of Old Age (2002-17)". https://darkosuvin.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/poems-old-age-2002-17.pdf. (Accessed 12 August 2021) ("Ah! God…", "Autobiography 2004: De Darci Natura", and "To Carry Over".)