The End of Science Fiction

“The End of Science Fiction” employs unrhymed free verse organized in four stanzas of varying length, for a total of 36 lines. The point of view of the speaker starts in first person plural, using the pronoun “we.”

Syntactically, the first two stanzas use more passive language than the last two, which serves to create narrative distance as well as to lend a tone of instability to the experience of reading the poem: “We are the gods who can unmake / the world in seven days” (Lines 5-6) is an indefinite statement that suggests capability, but not strong will. Likewise, in the second stanza, the poet creates a kind of uncertainty in the poem with the line, “We are beginning to live forever” (Line 8). The grammar and language choices in the first two stanzas create a violent, disembodied, and precarious mood.

In the third stanza, the speaker adopts an imperative tone, directing the reader to “[i]nvent something” (Line 13). The shift to plain, active language allows the reader to create images of the natural world easily: A man, a woman, a child, a garden.