ABOUT URSULA K. LE GUIN’S POEM »THE INLAND SEA«

Abstract

In her experimentally formed, composite collage–novel Always Coming Home (1985) Ursula Le Guin gave us this wonderful example of science fiction poetry. Analysis reveals the deceptive sparsity of versification, the grammatical Rezimei 13 structure that suggests a static view of life, use of to be always as the main verb,
the obviously deliberate violations of grammar, all suggestive of Amer–Ind–like Kesh simplicity, their austere, Spartan dignity in short, concrete, solid statements of simple fact; also the feminist vision of young women as havens of safety and birth, and men as minute creatures humbly approaching. Geological sinking of central parts of North America is used by Le Guin as a socio logical weapon to defeat the male, industrial, armed, free–market intense civilization.