This collection is an excellent sampling of modern speculative poetry. I read a lot of it (but I often don’t get around to reading the poems from these particular magazines) and was pleased to find many familiar names here—people who are well-established in the field and whom I enjoy. However, I pleasantly jotted down some new names I’m completely unfamiliar with to hopefully delve into some other time!

The best thing about this book is the sheer variety of poems within. Many different themes are explored in different styles. Will every poem in this collection be to your taste? Absolutely not, but that’s the beauty of it. As the editor says in the foreword—these poems contain multitudes, braiding themes and ideas in a truly refreshing way.

If there’s any nitpick I have, it’s the somewhat limited selection. But this is of course a feature and deliberate limitation of the book—when you make a best-of of specific magazines you are of course limited to the poems from those magazines. I would love to see another modern poetry anthology from Interstellar Flight Press (probably the single best publisher in the field right now!) focusing on a bigger variety of voices, no repeated authors, across many different magazines, to truly showcase the state of modern speculative poetry.

Favorites:
- ARCHEOLOGISTS UNCOVER BONES, BIFOCALS, A TRICYLE by Steven Withrow
- BILLETS-DOUX by Brittany Hause
- ANSIBLES by Ursula Whitcher
- PACKING FOR THE AFTERLIFE by Mary Soon Lee
- MUSIC REMEMBERS by Ashok K. Banker

Thoughts: Who knew poems based on science fiction could be so beautiful? And these are. This is a lovely collection from some of the best SF writers. Like most collections, I didn’t “love” them all, but I did enjoy them all. Some were very short while others took you on a longer journey, but all were well written and unique.

Recommendation: Definitely recommended.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for this ARC. All opinions are as mine and are not influenced by anyone.

A collection of poems like a dazzling night sky, truly! Rarely have I encountered a collection in which I enjoy almost each and every poem, reading some of them twice immediately, then another three or four times. The Heartbeat of the Universe edited by Emily Hockaday puts together poems from the past decade of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and Analog Science Fiction, creating a superb, one-of-a-kind anthology. It is organized according to some recurring themes (time bending & time-travel, maps/far-away places, dispatches/messages through the universe) and it mixes scientific thinking & terms with poetic meanderings about life, love and almost everything else. I’ll try to select some of the lines that stayed with me, though that is almost impossible as each poem contained something unique or touching:

“If you once get bored with your gentle life, / we will book you a seat by our side. / There is enough night for everyone.” by Yuliia Vereta
“Every spring, the first red buds on / the apple trees surprise me, a kick in the / belly. The hum of the universe shocks me, / the pull of gravity and the way we keep / floating free.” by Rebecca Siegel
“Untugged by gravity, the heart becomes rounder, / floating like a red balloon / in the antechamber of an astronaut’s chest, / deformed by as much as 9.4%.” by Robert Broski
“Even computer-precise maos / distort the fractal reality of coastlines, / just as my hands must fail / in their longing to define and redefine / your body, protean as an ocean, / forever (gratefully so!) / beyond my or anyone else’s knowing.” by Fred D. White

Other favorite poems:
Somebody I used to love asks me who Marie Curie is by Carly Rubin, for the beauty with which it combines historical with personal fact.
Postulate 2 by Timons Esaias, for hitting hard and making me think about it again and again.
Hypothesis/Assertion by Daniel D. Villani, for being too sweet, just the kind of poem you’d read when in love.
Almost Certainly A Time Traveler by Jarod K. Anderson, for the way it marks with gratitude this one version of self/time.
Billets-doux by Brittany Hause, for its use of line and structure to tell a short, time-bending story of love.
Time Traveler At The Grocery Store Circa 1992 by Kristian Macaron, for exploring time-anxiety.
All the weight by Holly Day, for letting childish wonder get big.
Leaving by Bruce McAllister, for putting an alien spin to a familiar story in just a few words.
Messaging The Dead by Betsy Aoki, for considering the unknown After in a digital age.
All Saints Day by Lisa Bellamy, for the way it combines a great, heavy question of life with the mundane.
The Tsuchinoko Always Lies by Megan Branning, for the mythic rhythm of the language.
Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman by Ron Koertge, for the gentle visual image at the end of the poem.
Wobble by Richard Schiffman, for capturing the existential vibration of the heart.
Your Homeworld is Gone by Leslie J. Anderson, for the cosmic way it unpacks the self.

I really recommend this to every reader of poetry or science-fiction - I think it will make you fall in love with both, if you haven’t already.

Thanks Netgalley & Interstellar Flight Press for the e-ARC - opinions are my own entirely.

Thank you, NetGalley for providing me with this ARC! This collection was fabulous. I was surprised, nostalgic, so many different emotions, as you can expect from a great poetry collection. The poems were easy to read, and the whole thing felt very accessible. My favorite was the poem about someone who used to love someone who didn't know who Marie Curie was. I highly recommend this for everyone!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook ARC. I greatly enjoyed this book of sci-fi poetry and highly recommend it to fans of both poetry and the science-fiction genre.

I was amazed at how the authors used scientific terms to evoke various emotions throughout the book. The poems ranged from super short to a decent length. Some of them provided just a scene or an idea and others were able to tell a little story with the time they had on the page. One of the perks of a collection such as this one is that it introduces the reader to a large number of poets. The only drawback was that it left me wanting more.

this is a collection of sci-fi related poetry and short stories. it is definitely one of (if not number 1!) my favorite poetry collections of all time. incredibly well done.

I thought this was a beautiful collections of poems that spoke to so many aspects of our universe. There were so many themes and they were all really impactful. I enjoyed reading this so much.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

When I read the premise of this book I was intrigued. Whilst I enjoy poetry, I'd never read any anthology like this, and I never knew how much I needed it in my life!
These poems range from light hearted to deep and thought provoking, but page after page I found myself enthralled by the words and dual meanings. This really is a beautiful anthology and I would recommend it to science lovers and science avoiders alike.

"The Heartbeat of the Universe" gathers poems from luminaries in science fiction and literary genres, creating a collection that explores everything from the tiniest particles to the grandest astral phenomena. It's like having a front-row seat to the universe's most intimate verses.

Pros:
🌟 Five stars for this cosmic masterpiece! "The Heartbeat of the Universe" is a wonderful collection of poems – it's like stargazing with a quill, each poem a twinkling gem in the night sky.

🚀 I really enjoyed the speculative and astrological themes – a win-win for poetry and space nerds alike. It's like having the entire universe in verse.

🌌 Every poem was absolutely beautiful – it's like a garden of flowers, each one distinct and captivating.

🌠 Some favorites include "Mostly Hydrogen" by Jack Martin, "atomic numbers" by D. A. Xiaolin Spires, "Apocatastasis" by Jennifer Crow, "Field Notes" by Lola Haskins, "First Contact" by Stuart Greenhouse, and "The Three Laws of Poetics" by Stewart C. Baker.

📚 In conclusion, "The Heartbeat of the Universe" is a collection of poems that invites readers to explore the cosmos through the eyes of the most brilliant wordsmiths. Bravo to Emily Hockaday and the contributing poets – you've crafted a masterpiece that's both enlightening and enchanting! 🌌📚

Disclaimer: A cosmic-sized thank you to NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for this ARC. All opinions are as uniquely mine as a comet streaking across the night sky. 🚀💫📚

I never knew I needed to read poems based on science, space, math, etc., until now. This collection was wonderful and beautifully put together, even though I had to reread some of these to understand them, they each had something impactful about them to me.

A list of my favorite poems featured in this:
Hypothesis/Assertation by Daniel D. Villani
Neurologic by Robert Frazier
Collisions by Kathryn Fritz
Taxi Ride by Ian Goh
First Contact by Stuart Greenhouse
Wobble by Richard Schiffman
The Dogs of the Soviet Space Program by Christopher Cokinos
How To Go Twelfth by Mary Soon Lee

I loved the idea behind this book with short speculative poems. There are various writers with these stories and I’m glad that there was an additional section that talked a bit more into detail with these writers. Each story was different than one another and I enjoyed most of them. My favorites were Almost Certainly A Time Traveler by Jarod K. Anderson, I absolutely loved the writing in this short poem. I also really enjoyed Your Homeworld Is Gone by Leslie J. Anderson.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with access to read this book!

THE HEART BEAT OF THE UNIVERSE - the collection of poems in this book justifies the title of the book.it is an impressive collection which blows your mind ...as emily stated the future,past and present all bleed together in poetry ...for me reading these poems was a little tough because of the terms used in them but i love to explore so it was a nice deal for me ....the way maths ,physics,stars,chemistry,time, perfectly related to love ,sadness,...experiences ...it was basically a storm of emotions.........some poems were so simple yet meaningful...and some were so complex..i loved the sequence of the poems arranged in a subtle way.....words were so neatly organised and arranged ....my personal favourites from this book which blowed my mind and took me to differentworld was messaging the dead...,Hypothesis.,The appeal of time travel,Messaging the dead...and the best best one would be MUSIC REMEMBERS....i just love it .........i would surely recommend this book to read.....the only negative thing about this book is there is so much more knowledge we should search on to understand the depth of the poem ....it may look as a short book but for me personally it took long time to read it.......but again it was worth it...i would give 4 stars out of five.....a book to read to expolre the poetic version ...in different angles..

This was a wonderful collection. So many of the poems struck hard and stayed with me through the length of the book. I found it impossible to put down until it was finished and I'm sure I'll be going back to reread it soon.