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Issue 24 • April 2017
Alternate Stories/Alternate Realities
edited by Alan Ira Gordon

Introduction to Issue 24 • Alternate Stories/Realities

Welcome to the “Alternate Stories/Alternate Realities” issue of Eye To The Telescope.

Alternate reality has been and continues to be a popular and well-visited theme central to storytelling in all of its forms. Classic alternate reality favorites that come to my mind include Ray Bradbury’s short story “A Sound Of Thunder,” Harry Turtledove’s alternate history novels, Ward Moore’s novel Bring The Jubilee, and Philip K. Dick’s classic The Man In The High Castle, which is also currently in Season Two of a popular television adaptation on Amazon. We each have our own list of favorite tales that fall into the alternate realities category.

Of course, poetry is also very well represented in this category. Alternate realities is a representative theme in poetry today, equal to that of any other form of artistic expression. For proof, just take a look at any issue of Star*Line, the quarterly journal of the SFPA, and you’ll find a fair representation of the theme.

I had two goals in editing this “alternates” issue of ETTT. The first was to represent the variety of alternate reality/story approaches that are possible within the poetic form. The 20 poems represented offer such varied approaches, including multiverse explorations, changes in our perception of reality, and alterations to the human form. The poems range from humor to dystopia. Each is unique regarding the poet’s chosen approach toward presenting a situation or world sense different from our own.

My second goal was to present poems that provoke each reader’s personal thinking regarding the nature of our own world by way of exploring the concept of these “what if?” poetic situations. I hope that the poems herein will jumpstart reader’s own inner dialogue (and their own poetry, of course!) about our world and lives, and how viewing life from an alternate form can provide useful perspective toward one’s own worldview.

So a very sincere thank you to all of the poets who submitted so many wonderful and enjoyable poems for this issue and I hope that you enjoy the variety selected herein!

—Alan Ira Gordon