Martian poetry

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Martian poetry was a minor movement in British poetry in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which everyday things and human behaviour are described in a strange way, as if by a visiting Martian who does not understand them. Poets most closely associated with it are Craig Raine and Christopher Reid.

The term Martianism has also been applied more widely to include fiction as well as to poetry. The word martianism is, coincidentally, an anagram of the name of one of its principal exponents, Martin Amis, who promoted the work of both Raine and Reid in the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman.^[1]

Perhaps the best-known Martian poetry is Craig Raine's "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home" in which a Martian attempts to describe everyday human interactions and habits from his own point of view.