A look at “Forest Starships” by Petra Kuppers

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Forest Starships Petra Kuppers

(while wandering in the forest at Indian Point, Ellsworth, Maine) Bats watched them fall, cupped like tiny palms, toward earthen forests. They land, eager ears up, on twigs and felled branches. They nestle between lichen, fungi, figure out hyphae, the deep composting web. Once homed, aliens echolocate via sonar chirps, mimic Blue Jay, Hairy Woodpecker, Song Sparrow, Black-Capped Chickadee, Northern Parula, the Black-Throated Green Warbler. Thin sound beams traverse the woods, establish generations, the milky way’s travelers in their new division. The trill of me, me, me, a tiny army of green shells, parsing old and new ocean kinships. And then they wait. Wood fibers decay, car tires feed carbon black into morning breezes, a hint of rock dust, rush hour exhaust fumes. They stir the pot, assemble new fuel, toward the day that conflagration will send them, spores and all, toward, toward the orbit, beyond it, into nebulae, closer, so much closer into the dark.

Copyright © 2023 by Petra Kuppers. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 31, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

Petra Kuppers is a white, queer, cisgender, disabled woman from Germany. She is the author of Diver Beneath the Street (Wayne State University Press, 2024), among several other titles.

Photo credit: Tamara Wade

About this Poem “As a poet and dancer, I drift in natural and unnatural spaces, and in this poem, I visit with extraterrestrial lichen. That day in Maine, I was using my ‘crippy,’ disabled, unsteady walk to lean into trees, ask permission of bark to accept my weight. I listened to birds and I found these beautiful mosses and lichens. This poem emerged when I wove my fantasies with my forest sensations, with stories of Indigenous and settler presences swinging in my ear, and I wrote of hopeful futures in the in-between. I invite you today: visit the land, find your starships.” —Petra Kuppers

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The thing I love most about this poem is the use of bird names in capital letters, giving the proper noun association of significance. The vivid details of description and imagery make it ethereal, and I wonder if the note at the beginning helps me visualize it more or less. I wonder what it would be like at the end of the poem instead. It’s not quite a “spoiler alert” function, but I think on what my experience would be if I didn’t have that foreknowledge, as it instantly gives me an idea of climate and environment. I know it’s one more reason for me to visit Maine, though!

I also love the use of indents—they almost serve as textured layers like the lichen itself on tree bark. Both the alliteration and the rhyme of “the trill of me, me, me, a tiny army”… There are so many moments of lyricism: “fungi,/ figure”… “Wood fibers decay,/ car tires feed” (isn’t that juxtaposing image great?)… and then the last stanza first line words, “toward” “toward” “beyond” “into” “closer” “into”… That mixture gives the tone of interdependence between nature and humanity, and yet the reminder of our hostilities to it. There a mix of the universe, the natural, and the urban. The word “starships” itself in the title is what drew me, combined with “forest.” I got vibes of the UFO image 🛸 above the forest with the words, I WANT TO BELIEVE. And I also got Star Trek: First Contact vibes of the Vulcan ship landing in Bozeman, greeting Cochran.

There is something incredibly futuristic about the forest and listening to it, being absorbed by it, as Kuppers notes. There’s possibility of healing and restoration. Of discovery both new and old, going back to details as simple as bird names and sounds and colors. Reminding us of childhood hobbies, perhaps. Things put aside in favor of busyness. Take a hike, indeed.