In 1971, on the eve of NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft becoming the first Earthly object to orbit another planet, Caltech assembled a panel of thinkers to mark the occasion. Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke conversed about new frontiers, extra terrestrial life, and the human impulse for exploration. But it was Bradbury who offered the most eloquent words on the subject.
“We want to love life, to be excited by the challenge, to live at the top of our enthusiasm. The process enables us to gather more information. Darwin was the kind of romantic who could stand in the middle of a meadow like a statue for eight hours on end and let the bees buzz in and out of his ear,” Bradbury said. “I think it’s part of the nature of man to start with romance and build to a reality. There’s hardly a scientist or an astronaut I’ve met who wasn’t beholden to some romantic before him, who led him to doing something in life.”
It’s the first week of August and we’re hearing writing along the theme of space this month. Today, Kyle Bilinski shares a poem by Joseph Millar, titled “Telephone Repairman." A poet from Oregon, Millar has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific University and his latest collection, Shine, was published in 2024.
Something I Heard is supported by Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
