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Artifacts
For his 40th collection of poetry, SFPA Grand Master Bruce Boston serves up 59 poems and prose poems, including ten appearing here for the first time, along with other artifacts reprinted from Analog, Asimov’s SF Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Grievous Angel, New Myths, Polu Texni, The HWA Poetry Showcase, and other leading speculative publications. Cover art by Wendy Saber Core.
98 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 16, 2018
18 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Boston
352 books117 followersI've published more than sixty books and chapbooks, including the novels Stained Glass Rain and the best-of fiction collection Masque of Dreams. My work ranges from broad humor to literary surrealism, with many stops along the way for science fiction, fantasy, and horror. My novel The Guardener's Tale (Sam's Dot, 2007) was a Bram Stoker Award Finailist and a Prometheus Award Nominee. My stories and poems have appeared in hundreds of publications, including Asimov's SF Magazine, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and The Nebula Awards Showcase, and received a number of awards, most notably, a Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. For more information, please visit my website at http://www.bruceboston.com/
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 28, 2018
Another excellent collection by Grand Master Poet, Bruce Boston. Artifacts offers poems that have never been collected to date in a speculative array of memorable wonder and sensual imagery.
July 22, 2018
"Write in a soft voice that carries a crossbow."
- "Surreal Bucket List #3"
Crafting poetry that lacks a formal structure yet retains that essential quality which raises it above prose is no easy matter. In his 40th collection, Bruce Boston meets the challenge of free verse with the same ease as he makes the homely strange and the alien strangely familiar. A brilliant cascade of music, math, myth and literary motif, Artifacts excavates what lies beneath (or possibly beside) the everyday.
Boston's style—as exemplified by the Locus award-winning "Return to the Mutant Rain Forest" (not included in this collection but well worth seeking out)—is frequently conversational. But it's the kind of conversation that starts ordinarily enough, then gets completely out of hand. He frequently works in suites, poems of different styles and lengths exploring aspects of a subject. In this collection, "A Dangerous Reading" introduces a set of works concerning fortune-tellers good and bad. "Beyond Symmetry" commences a delightful, reflective quartet. But the three poems patterned after Robert W. Chamber's The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories—"Exiled to Hastur", the extraordinary "She Walks In Yellow To Please Her Lord" and "Beheading the King"—are among the strongest of his recent works, capturing in a thoroughly contemporary way something of Chamber's late Victorian grotesquerie.
Other, individual poems pick up on some of Boston's pet themes, previously explored in such collections as Accursed Wives (1993) and Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest (2017). As well as a new Surreal Bucket List (there is another, but not three), those who have been following his piquant examination of such dysfunctional relationships as "The Curse of the Alien's Wife" can rejoice in "Wife of a Particle Physicist". "The Music of Angels" recalls 2015's Resonance Dark and Light, with its evocations of the different music produced by everything from stars to skeletons.
Overall, this collection feels sterner than Resonance and bleaker than Visions. Images of destruction permeate, from individual murders to a dying world; indeed, a vengeful world. The sense of justified atrocity in "Enough" is both grim and awesome in its scope. But no matter how terrible the imago or how vast the scale, the human perspective is never entirely lost. It may be warped, or in memorium, but the reader will always find these pieces connect to them in some dark and curious way. Even at his most surreal, Boston writes of life.
"I explode to fractal feathers
beneath a semiotic sky
engraved with cloud runes
and clouds glyphs
in a language arcane
and illuminating
as if words were riven
by endless dichotomies,
an ongoing dialectic,
each thought entrenched
and bastioned by others,
beleaguered by innuendo
and extended hyperbole..."
—"When Words Take Flight"
A reviewer can really say no more.
- "Surreal Bucket List #3"
Crafting poetry that lacks a formal structure yet retains that essential quality which raises it above prose is no easy matter. In his 40th collection, Bruce Boston meets the challenge of free verse with the same ease as he makes the homely strange and the alien strangely familiar. A brilliant cascade of music, math, myth and literary motif, Artifacts excavates what lies beneath (or possibly beside) the everyday.
Boston's style—as exemplified by the Locus award-winning "Return to the Mutant Rain Forest" (not included in this collection but well worth seeking out)—is frequently conversational. But it's the kind of conversation that starts ordinarily enough, then gets completely out of hand. He frequently works in suites, poems of different styles and lengths exploring aspects of a subject. In this collection, "A Dangerous Reading" introduces a set of works concerning fortune-tellers good and bad. "Beyond Symmetry" commences a delightful, reflective quartet. But the three poems patterned after Robert W. Chamber's The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories—"Exiled to Hastur", the extraordinary "She Walks In Yellow To Please Her Lord" and "Beheading the King"—are among the strongest of his recent works, capturing in a thoroughly contemporary way something of Chamber's late Victorian grotesquerie.
Other, individual poems pick up on some of Boston's pet themes, previously explored in such collections as Accursed Wives (1993) and Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest (2017). As well as a new Surreal Bucket List (there is another, but not three), those who have been following his piquant examination of such dysfunctional relationships as "The Curse of the Alien's Wife" can rejoice in "Wife of a Particle Physicist". "The Music of Angels" recalls 2015's Resonance Dark and Light, with its evocations of the different music produced by everything from stars to skeletons.
Overall, this collection feels sterner than Resonance and bleaker than Visions. Images of destruction permeate, from individual murders to a dying world; indeed, a vengeful world. The sense of justified atrocity in "Enough" is both grim and awesome in its scope. But no matter how terrible the imago or how vast the scale, the human perspective is never entirely lost. It may be warped, or in memorium, but the reader will always find these pieces connect to them in some dark and curious way. Even at his most surreal, Boston writes of life.
"I explode to fractal feathers
beneath a semiotic sky
engraved with cloud runes
and clouds glyphs
in a language arcane
and illuminating
as if words were riven
by endless dichotomies,
an ongoing dialectic,
each thought entrenched
and bastioned by others,
beleaguered by innuendo
and extended hyperbole..."
—"When Words Take Flight"
A reviewer can really say no more.
September 15, 2020
(fractional rating: 3.25 stars)
This collection shows Boston's mind to be gracefully aging with a fair share of vision and vitality. Though not explicitly themed as a whole, certain poems seem to follow each other according to a unifying idea. "A Dangerous Reading" richly describes an ominous episode with Madame Tarot, and the three consecutive pieces are more tongue-in-cheek treatments of psychic power (or disability); amusingly clever, each one is closer to a one-sentence character portrait than a poem. A dozen or so pages onward, three King in Yellow-inspired works offer imaginatively perverse elaborations which probably would have pleased Chambers himself. Another testimony to Boston's facility for longer poems, "Forever Tracking" is a tribute to t. winter damon and flows with a powerful litany of references to the occult, full of ancient mystique.
Still, I often have found this poet to be too self-consciously eloquent even in his far superior, past collections. The metapoetic approach of "When Words Take Flight" does not so much soar as struggle beneath the weight of its own verbal excess. Whether the phrase "third hemisphere" is taken as oxymoronic or simply moronic, "Engines of the Future" demonstrates that the multiverse is too complex a subject to be successfully compressed even by an experienced poet. "Ensconced in dreams of edible beauty"--no, this isn't an ode to cannibalism--is one of the many unwieldy lines from the poem, "Heroes of Indefinite Beauty."
Though not matching the brilliance of 'The Nightmare Collection' or any of Boston's fascinating expeditions in the Mutant Rain Forest, this collection is worthwhile if only because it proves that a long and prolific career is possible in a niche so rare as speculative poetry.
This collection shows Boston's mind to be gracefully aging with a fair share of vision and vitality. Though not explicitly themed as a whole, certain poems seem to follow each other according to a unifying idea. "A Dangerous Reading" richly describes an ominous episode with Madame Tarot, and the three consecutive pieces are more tongue-in-cheek treatments of psychic power (or disability); amusingly clever, each one is closer to a one-sentence character portrait than a poem. A dozen or so pages onward, three King in Yellow-inspired works offer imaginatively perverse elaborations which probably would have pleased Chambers himself. Another testimony to Boston's facility for longer poems, "Forever Tracking" is a tribute to t. winter damon and flows with a powerful litany of references to the occult, full of ancient mystique.
Still, I often have found this poet to be too self-consciously eloquent even in his far superior, past collections. The metapoetic approach of "When Words Take Flight" does not so much soar as struggle beneath the weight of its own verbal excess. Whether the phrase "third hemisphere" is taken as oxymoronic or simply moronic, "Engines of the Future" demonstrates that the multiverse is too complex a subject to be successfully compressed even by an experienced poet. "Ensconced in dreams of edible beauty"--no, this isn't an ode to cannibalism--is one of the many unwieldy lines from the poem, "Heroes of Indefinite Beauty."
Though not matching the brilliance of 'The Nightmare Collection' or any of Boston's fascinating expeditions in the Mutant Rain Forest, this collection is worthwhile if only because it proves that a long and prolific career is possible in a niche so rare as speculative poetry.
June 28, 2025
A collections of shards from unnamed worlds, 59 in number. A myriad of forms and impressions, beautifully beyond.
This poetry collection sheds the following light on it's own title:
artifact
an object made
by a human being, typically
an item of cultural or historical interest (p. 9)
And yet this isn't a straightforward answer since this collection of diverse speculative poetry, doesn't relate to history or culture as our world knows them. How other worlds know theirs, on the other hand, is another matter. In fact, calling a speculative poem an 'artifact' is to attach an inspiring descriptive to it, one that implies that it says something about the world non realis it's taken from.
Artifacts are incidental; not unlike a famed saying about dice, artifacts lie as they have fallen. They might not be central to any great event, they might not even be typical for the society that made them. Yet they don't speak up and explain themselves, leaving that job to the onlooker. Their silence inspires the deep diggers, but also strange theories and confusion. And sometimes, we finally get to understand them, finally see what must be their correct 'what's and 'why's – but their laudation of the unraveller remains mute, and we can thus never have their confirmation that we have happened upon the right answer, weighing the conclusion down with uncertainty. The analogy to poetry seems clear –
– especially with regard to speculative poetry. With poetry that relates solely to our own reality we have a reference point, which we can use to affirm, or vice versa, what is being alluded to. With poetry relating to worlds other than ours, things are more akin to the study of the distant past or the unknown. A fictional universe is unknowable to the reader beyond what they can glean from the text describing it, and if that text is a poem, we are often left with limited information, often with more impressions than actual details. As with artifacts pertaining to other things which we cannot readily verify by looking up from the book, the past being a good example of this, such poems force us to infer much and attach only a degree of certainty to our assumptions.
And beautiful prose yields beautiful inferences – so this reviewer believes absent doubt.
Artifacts is abundantly potent when it comes to beautiful inferences. Even the three poems dedicated to Chamber's King-in-Yellow are sublime, be they through bedazzlement –
She who serves her Lord
more than any rank courtesan
in His bloodstained seraglio.
She who severs the swollen
filaments of His deranged
desires over and again.
She walks in yellow silk with
gold and bile and stark obituaries. (p. 24; 'She Walks in Yellow to Please Her Lord')
– or hilarity:
The doctors insist I am delusional,
The doctors are only dreams
I create in moments of sanity. (p. 23; 'Exiled to Hastur')
The poems range from only a few lines of snark or cleverness –
She was a clairvoyant
who could only
foresee the future
of alternate realities. (p. 16; 'A Dubious Talent')
– to 'The Surreal Fountain Pen' that fills four densely packed (for a poem) pages on its mercurial nature, which is cerebral and spiritual, transcendental and transformative [...] deeply bedded in the flow of time and the dimensions of space [...] to create without restraint, (p. 87) which also seems to be how its instruction manual poem came to be.
Just about every piece has a light heart and a gait suited for readers reclined and in a pleasant mood. A quote from 'A Dangerous Reading', one of the author's best works, sets the stage nicely if a bit cryptic. This is how it feels to open oneself to these pages:
Madam Tarot moves about the room,
drawing shades against the daylight,
switching on a lamp with a fringed
shade to counter the sudden dimness.
She lights the pomegranate incense,
Her hands unfold the velvet cloth.
At moments like this I am sure
she is The Hierophant, Reversed. (p. 15)
The poems are inspired, often covering stories previously unheard. In the tragic 'Pan's Descent' we see the hoofed deity of sátyroi alone in the decrepit remnants of his once so beautiful world. Death is also the topic of the jocular 'Revenants,' which illustrates what pettiness can achieve when one has a family history of revenance. The clever 'Triptych of the Tower' uses a technique normally reserved for paintings, placing the tree parts of the poem side by side, his on one side, hers on the opposite, and the middle third is their brief encounter across the boundaries of their stature, (also you can glean a lot more from this encounter if you know anything about the card The Tower from Tarot.)
Other poems, like the aforementioned 'A Dangerous Reading,' feel very recognisable, but carve their own path through it's prose and view. One of the poet's staple 'Wives of' poems has been included, as well as a small batch of his surrealisms, and a dedication to James Joyce ('With Blood So Dark') which this reviewer neither know to categorise nor understood (which may to a degree have been the point).
Artifacts doesn't seem to be Boston's most talked about collection. Yet, every one of his collections feels like one of the best ones ever. The quality is always high, to the point where it seems silly to claim that any of the collections are vastly superior to another. If today you're the lazy dreamer, then this is where you'll find your fill. Personally, I can see myself returning regularly to this one to re-read quite a few of the poems herein.
Also. The poet likely never intended so much stock to be put on the title as this reviewer has, but what is inspirational inspires. Indeed, the Surreal Fountain Pen works as indicated.
This poetry collection sheds the following light on it's own title:
artifact
an object made
by a human being, typically
an item of cultural or historical interest (p. 9)
And yet this isn't a straightforward answer since this collection of diverse speculative poetry, doesn't relate to history or culture as our world knows them. How other worlds know theirs, on the other hand, is another matter. In fact, calling a speculative poem an 'artifact' is to attach an inspiring descriptive to it, one that implies that it says something about the world non realis it's taken from.
Artifacts are incidental; not unlike a famed saying about dice, artifacts lie as they have fallen. They might not be central to any great event, they might not even be typical for the society that made them. Yet they don't speak up and explain themselves, leaving that job to the onlooker. Their silence inspires the deep diggers, but also strange theories and confusion. And sometimes, we finally get to understand them, finally see what must be their correct 'what's and 'why's – but their laudation of the unraveller remains mute, and we can thus never have their confirmation that we have happened upon the right answer, weighing the conclusion down with uncertainty. The analogy to poetry seems clear –
– especially with regard to speculative poetry. With poetry that relates solely to our own reality we have a reference point, which we can use to affirm, or vice versa, what is being alluded to. With poetry relating to worlds other than ours, things are more akin to the study of the distant past or the unknown. A fictional universe is unknowable to the reader beyond what they can glean from the text describing it, and if that text is a poem, we are often left with limited information, often with more impressions than actual details. As with artifacts pertaining to other things which we cannot readily verify by looking up from the book, the past being a good example of this, such poems force us to infer much and attach only a degree of certainty to our assumptions.
And beautiful prose yields beautiful inferences – so this reviewer believes absent doubt.
Artifacts is abundantly potent when it comes to beautiful inferences. Even the three poems dedicated to Chamber's King-in-Yellow are sublime, be they through bedazzlement –
She who serves her Lord
more than any rank courtesan
in His bloodstained seraglio.
She who severs the swollen
filaments of His deranged
desires over and again.
She walks in yellow silk with
gold and bile and stark obituaries. (p. 24; 'She Walks in Yellow to Please Her Lord')
– or hilarity:
The doctors insist I am delusional,
The doctors are only dreams
I create in moments of sanity. (p. 23; 'Exiled to Hastur')
The poems range from only a few lines of snark or cleverness –
She was a clairvoyant
who could only
foresee the future
of alternate realities. (p. 16; 'A Dubious Talent')
– to 'The Surreal Fountain Pen' that fills four densely packed (for a poem) pages on its mercurial nature, which is cerebral and spiritual, transcendental and transformative [...] deeply bedded in the flow of time and the dimensions of space [...] to create without restraint, (p. 87) which also seems to be how its instruction manual poem came to be.
Just about every piece has a light heart and a gait suited for readers reclined and in a pleasant mood. A quote from 'A Dangerous Reading', one of the author's best works, sets the stage nicely if a bit cryptic. This is how it feels to open oneself to these pages:
Madam Tarot moves about the room,
drawing shades against the daylight,
switching on a lamp with a fringed
shade to counter the sudden dimness.
She lights the pomegranate incense,
Her hands unfold the velvet cloth.
At moments like this I am sure
she is The Hierophant, Reversed. (p. 15)
The poems are inspired, often covering stories previously unheard. In the tragic 'Pan's Descent' we see the hoofed deity of sátyroi alone in the decrepit remnants of his once so beautiful world. Death is also the topic of the jocular 'Revenants,' which illustrates what pettiness can achieve when one has a family history of revenance. The clever 'Triptych of the Tower' uses a technique normally reserved for paintings, placing the tree parts of the poem side by side, his on one side, hers on the opposite, and the middle third is their brief encounter across the boundaries of their stature, (also you can glean a lot more from this encounter if you know anything about the card The Tower from Tarot.)
Other poems, like the aforementioned 'A Dangerous Reading,' feel very recognisable, but carve their own path through it's prose and view. One of the poet's staple 'Wives of' poems has been included, as well as a small batch of his surrealisms, and a dedication to James Joyce ('With Blood So Dark') which this reviewer neither know to categorise nor understood (which may to a degree have been the point).
Artifacts doesn't seem to be Boston's most talked about collection. Yet, every one of his collections feels like one of the best ones ever. The quality is always high, to the point where it seems silly to claim that any of the collections are vastly superior to another. If today you're the lazy dreamer, then this is where you'll find your fill. Personally, I can see myself returning regularly to this one to re-read quite a few of the poems herein.
Also. The poet likely never intended so much stock to be put on the title as this reviewer has, but what is inspirational inspires. Indeed, the Surreal Fountain Pen works as indicated.
December 7, 2024
I read a passage from this collection to my wife and she said “So much for any ambitions I ever had to write.” We all feel a little that way after reading Bruce Boston’s work. Another great collection.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews