SPOCK’S LOVE POEM

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 9 “Sonnet from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti III”

Author: Shirley Meech  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 1

Historian’s Note: Sometime during the episode “This Side of Paradise”   

Cast of Characters:  Lieutenant Commander Spock              Leila Kalomi      

Starships and/or Starbases: none

Planets: Earth, Omicron Ceti III

My Spoiler filled summary and review: This section is just a single poem that follows:

I thought the memory of you was gone----

I thought it buried underneath the years.

But now, it rises, bright as Vulcan dawn,

And I remember you, and Earth, and tears.

 

Your tears were falling like the rains of Earth;

You were the storms and roses of Earth's spring.

You could not know that, almost from my birth

The rites of Vulcan bound me to T'Pring.

 

I could not break those ties; I had no choice---

Returned to space, left you and Earth behind.

But still I heard the echo of your voice,

Found the rain and wind and roses in my mind.

 

You told me that you loved me, and you cried.

I said I had no feelings. And I lied.

Additional thoughts: There is something that I need to confess right away.  I am both poetry deaf and dance blind. If I watch a “poetry jam” or a dance competition, I cannot tell you why one poem or dance is better than the other.  I can be moved by words and impressed with feats of well-choreographed athleticism, but I cannot distinguish what makes one performance better or more moving than another.   So, I won’t be commenting on stanzas or structure but I will comment just on the Star Trek content alone.

                So on to the Star Trek content.  This poem clearly takes place during the episode “This Side of Paradise.” It deals with Spock’s reaction to seeing Leila Kalomi for the first time since they broke up back on Earth.  Now the poem does not make any mention of the main part of the story, that Leila and her colony were infected with parasitic spores that killed all their ambition and made them want to stay on the planet and never do anything. Spock and most the crew were infected as well until Captain Kirk found a cure by making anyone effected mad, thereby killing the parasite. No, this is just about the romance both old and new.

Leila, the girl who Mr. Spock feel in love

                Since this is also written years after the series the poem has some hindsight and is able to include later Star Trek lore to explore the romance.  It directly confronts the fact that Spock’s relationship with Leila means that he was cheating on T’Pring!  Now this episode was written in the first season where “Amok Time” is written in the second.  Thus, we see an earlier example of the trouble with retcons.  When Jerry Sohl and Dorothy C. Fontana sat down to write this episode T’Pring, as a character did not exist.  When Theodore Sturgeon wrote “Amok Time” he, perhaps unintentionally, cast some unexpected shade onto the earlier story.  So, in the poem deals with Spock’s unseen conflict between duty with his intended or seeking the love of his life.

T'Pring and her Man-friend

                The last lines of the poem deal with Spock telling Leila that he has no feelings, which as the poem notes is a lie.  Vulcans have feelings they just control them.  As I explained before Spock identifies and wants to be seen as a Vulcan, and he associates with humans because they make him feel validated and seen to be Vulcan.  His fellow Vulcans always make reference to his human side that causes Spock embarrassment.  Now while on Earth he falls for a human.  It happened to his own full Vulcan father, that is why he exists, so falling for a human doesn’t make him any less Vulcan.  However, for him to be in a relationship with a human to the point he set aside his own Vulcan intended, would almost be as if he stood out in the middle of the Vulcan Science Council and publicly renounced his Vulcanhood. He can’t leave T’Pring for Leila because he would forever forfeit the recognition he desires from his own people. 

Tormented since a child!

                Now I have always hated T’Pring due to her actions in “Amok Time.” When the two episodes are forced to be compared together her actions can be seen in a different light.  She may have cheated on Spock with Stonn, but Spock had hardly been faithful to her.  I will point out I still think lowly of T’Pring.  Not because of the cheating, but what she did in regards to Spock and Kirk.  Spock may have faults but he didn’t try to put T’Pring in a situation where she was either forced to kill her best friend or die. Between the two of them Spock took the high ground and proved to be the better person, however when the other person is T’Pring being the better person isn’t hard.

Made to fight to the death, the Captain loses but he gets better!

Should it be canon: I actually don’t see any part of it that isn’t already canon.

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5