First Line Mash Up 1 Another thing science fiction and poetry have in common are a peculiar dependent relationship to the effects caused by first lines:

Say you're a kid, and one dark night you're running along the cold sand with this helicopter in your hand, saying very fast witchy-witchy-witchy. Theodore Sturgeon, "The Man Who Lost the Sea."

Imponderable the dinosaur / sinks slow, / the mammoth saurian / ghoul, the eastern / Cape... Hart Crane, "The Bridge (IV, Cape Hattaras)"

"Look, Mother. The clock is running backwards." Phillip Jose Farmer, "Mother."


Is that dance slowing in the mind of man / That made him think the universe could hum? "Theodore Roethke, Four for Sir John Davies (I)"

Incomprehensible gaiety and dread / Attended what we did. Theodore Roethke, "Four for Sir John Davies (III)"

Athelsan Cuff was, to put it very mildly, astonished that his son should be crying. L. Sprague De Camp, "The Blue Giraffe"

The brown enormous odor he lived by / was too close, with its breathing and thick hair, / for him to judge. Elizabeth Bishop, "The Prodigal"

Listen Zombie. Believe me. James Tiptree, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"

A pebble swells to a boulder at high speed. May Swenson, "Electronic Sound"  ¶ 8:20 AM