The Science Fiction Poetry Association has finalized its 2020 Rhysling Award candidates, reports David C. Kopaska-Merkel. Eighty-four members nominated.
The Rhysling Award is given in two categories. “Best Long Poem” is for poems of 50+ lines, or for prose poems, of 500+ words. “Best Short Poem” is limited to poems of no more than 49 lines, or prose poems of no more than 499 words.
SFPA members have until June 15 to vote on the winners.
| Short Poems (77 poems) |
| “Abeona, Goddess of Outward Journeys, Pilots the Interstellar Ark” • Nisa Malli • Apparition Lit 7 |
| “Aliens declutter” • PS Cottier • Scifaikuest, August |
| “All-Father” • Vince Gotera • Dreams and Nightmares 111 |
| “Alternate Galatea” • Amelia Gorman • Liminality 21 |
| “Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee” • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Blood Moon” • Sara Backer • Polu Texni, November 24 |
| “The Book of Fly” • John Philip Johnson • Rattle 63 |
| “The Certainty of Seeing” • Michelle Muenzler • Polu Texni, 3 June |
| “Collie Dogs In Space” • Debby Feo • A Poet Explores The Stars, ed. J. Alan Erwine (Nomadic Delirium Press) |
| “Continuum” • G. O. Clark • Analog, September/October |
| “Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov’s SF, July/August |
| “Crimson Faces” • Maxwell I. Gold • Space & Time Magazine 135 |
| “The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring |
| “Disassembly at Auction” • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Mobius: The Journal of Social Change 30:4 |
| “Don’t Open the Box!” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P’rea Press) |
| “drag strip drag” • Francine P. Lewis • Eye to the Telescope 32 |
| “Eldritch Horror” • Katie Manning • Bowery Gothic I |
| “Encore” • Tim Jones • Big Hair Was Everywhere (ESAW) |
| “Fallen But Not Down” • Sarah Cannavo • Liminality 20 |
| “Fallen Star” • Clay F. Johnson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice |
| From “Moon Sonnet” • Lily Zhou • Poetry, May |
| “The Ghosts of Those” • Ron Riekki • Star*Line 42.2 |
| “The Girl who Loved Birds” • Clara Blackwood • Amazing Stories 3 |
| “Goddamn These Minotaurs” • Persephone Erin Hudson • paintbucket, November 10 |
| “haiku” • Juan M. Perez • haikuniverse, June 8 |
| “Halsted IV” • Jeff Crandall • Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October |
| “How to Care for Your Yesterday’s Camel” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation) |
| “How to Colonize Ganymede” • Mary Soon Lee • New Myths 48 |
| “How To Dance With Dark Matter” • Mary Soon Lee • Uppagus 37 |
| “Huitzilopochtli” • Lorraine Schein • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice |
| “If All the Seas Were Blood” • D. L. Myers • Oracles from the Black Pool (Hippocampus Press) |
| “The Journey” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, April 1 |
| “Lady Macbeth’s Green Gown” • Jacqueline West • Liminality 19 |
| “Mary Agnes Chase (1869–1963)” • Jessy Randall • Strange Horizons, December 9 |
| “Mary Poppins, 2100” • Cathy Tenzo • Typehouse 18 |
| “The Mother Searches for Her Own Story” • Mary McMyne • Strange Horizons, November 11 |
| “Mothsong” • John Philip Johnson • Liquid Imagination 42 |
| “My Ghost Will Know The Way” • Beth Cato • The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August |
| “New Stars” • F. J. Bergmann • Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest |
| “The Night the Unicorn Leapt from the Tapestry” • Kate Pentecost • Liminality 19 |
| “No Fairy Tale World” • Lisa Timpf • New Myths 47 |
| “The Nonpareils: As Told by the Woman in the Gingerbread House” • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Objects of Desire” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 113 |
| “Óòjí Íjè [Kola Journey]” • Uche Ogbuji • FIYAH Literary Magazine 11 |
| “The Planets? Sweet …” • Harris Coverley • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Phobos and Deimos” • W. C. Roberts • Chrome Bairn 82 |
| “Prayer on a Friday Morning” • L. R. Harvey • American Diversity Report, December |
| “A Purring Cat is a Time Machine” • Beth Cato • Daikaijuzine 1 |
| “Regarding me” • Michael H. Hanson • HWA Poetry Showcase VI |
| “Reparation” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11 |
| “Revisiting the origins of language” • Terrie Leigh Relf • Space & Time Magazine 133 |
| “Robert Goddard at Roswell” • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “The Root King’s Winter” • Jessica P. Wick • Enchanted Living/Faerie Magazine, Winter |
| “A Rose Waits” • Adele Gardner • Dreams and Nightmares 113 |
| “The Ruined Library” • Bruce Boston • Asimov’s SF, May/June |
| “The Sacrifices” • Mike Allen • Sycorax 2 |
| “Samsara” • Jason O’Toole • The Scrib Arts Journal, Fall |
| “Seven Reasons to Have Hope for a Better Future. Number Five Will Really Get You!” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February |
| “shoals of Miami” • Greer Woodward • Troutswirl, December 4 |
| “Singing Ghost” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February |
| “The Snow Globe” • Marge Simon • Polu Texni, 8 December |
| “The Solace of the Farther Moon” • Allan Rozinski • Weirdbook Annual 2 |
| “Sphere” • Francis W. Alexander • Scifaikuest XVI:1 |
| “Steampunk Christmas” • David Clink • Star*Line 42.4 |
| “Styx” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11 |
| “Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5 |
| “Ten-Card Tarot, Pentacles Wild” • F. J. Bergmann • Eye to the Telescope 32 |
| “Three of Swords, King of Cups” • Ali Trotta • Fireside Fiction, July |
| “To Skeptics” • Mary Soon Lee • Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August |
| “The Unseen” • Fran Wilde • Fireside Fiction, March |
| “Wake Up, Little Stevie” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation) |
| “What You Hear When Your Best Friend Falls for a Supervillain” • Beth Cato • Star*Line 42.1 |
| “when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive |
| “Where Have the Space Heroes Gone?” • Darrell Schweitzer • Amazing Stories 77:1 |
| “The Wishing Clock of Gassytown” • Deborah Wong • Frozen Wavelets 1 |
| “Witch” • Mary Soon Lee • Polu Texni, October 21 |
| “The Wolfman and Space Girl” • Neil Sloboda • Neon 48 |
| Long Poems (49 poems) |
| “Afterlife” • F. J. Bergmann • Shoreline of Infinity 14 |
| “Borrower” • Cislyn Smith • Strange Horizons, July 29 |
| “Bright Record” • John W. Sexton • Polu Texni, April 8 |
| “Cannibal Rex” • Allan Rozinski • Anatomy of Hate, ed. Karen Otto (Alban Lake Publishing) |
| “Childhood Memory from the Old Victorian House on Warner” • Beth Cato • Uncanny 27 |
| “Children of the Trees” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, March 11 |
| “The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 28 |
| “The City That Changed Hands” • Maya Chhabra • Strange Horizons, December 23 |
| “Consumption” • Emma J. Gibbon • Eye to the Telescope 33 |
| “Crop Circles” • Lori R. Lopez • Deep Fried Horror, Mother’s Day Edition |
| “The Daily Freak Show” • Bruce Boston • New Myths 47 |
| “Driven” • Marcie Tentchoff • Outposts of Beyond VII:1 |
| “Eight Simulations for the Missing” • T. D. Walker • Small Waiting Objects (CW Books) |
| “Envoy” • F. J. Bergmann • Polu Texni, October 28 |
| “For My Daughter Who Will Ask for a Seismograph Implant” • T. D. Walker • Small Waiting Objects (CW Books) |
| “Fune-RL” • Emma J. Gibbon • Strange Horizons, 15 July |
| “Green Sky” • Herb Kauderer • Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing) |
| “Heliobacterium daphnephilum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Star*Line 42.3 |
| “If Love is Real, So Are Fairies” • Cynthia So • Uncanny 29 |
| “In The End, Only The Gods” • Christina Sng • Tales Of The Lost Vol. 1, eds. Eugene Johnson & Steve Dillon (Things in the Well) |
| “Inside My Belly” • Alessandro Manzetti • The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing) |
| “Keep My Course True” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 112 |
| “Lines Written by Moonlight at Whitby Abbey” • Clay F. Johnson • Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing) |
| “The Macabre Modern” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P’rea Press) |
| “Maculation” • F. J. Bergmann • Spectral Realms 10 |
| “The making of dragons” • Herb Kauderer • Altered Reality Magazine, January 30 |
| “The Mining Town” • Holly Lyn Walrath • 2019 SFPA Poetry Contest |
| “My Stories Are Hungry” • John C. Mannone • American Diversity Report, April 10 |
| “Nan-e” • Leon Mackenzie • Neon 49 |
| “Nocturnal Embers” • Lori R. Lopez • The Sirens Call 43 |
| “Obsidian” • Fungisayi Sasa • New Myths 46 |
| “Ode to the Artistic Temperament” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 42 |
| “Reincarnation” • John C. Mannone • Abyss & Apex 69 |
| “A Ride through Faerie” • Clay F. Johnson • Enchanted Conversation, September |
| “The Scarecrow’s Lover” • Alexandria Baisden • Abyss & Apex 72 |
| “The Scroll of Thoth” • Frank Coffman • The Coven’s Hornbook and Other Poems (Bold Venture Press) |
| “Scylla and Charybdis” • Wade German • Weird Fiction Review 9 |
| “Sea Witch From the Deep” • Ellen Huang • Apparition Lit 7 |
| “The Storm Witch” • Colleen Anderson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice |
| “Stormbound” • Marsheila Rockwell • Polu Texni, February 11 |
| “Sycophantam astrum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Eye to the Telescope 34 |
| “Tarot Times” • Bruce Boston • Illumen, summer |
| “tetrahedral edifices of a sticky rice realm” • D. A. Xiaolin Spires • Mithila Review, November 20 |
| “Treason” • Shana Ross • Liminality 20 |
| “the undrowned” • Catherine Kyle • Crab Fat Magazine, January |
| “why not?” • Gerri Leen • New Myths 49 |
| “witches we” • Adele Gardner • Bluff & Vine 3 |
| “The Wolf Isn’t The Only One Who Hides in Human Clothes” • Natalie Wang • Corvid Queen, January 5 |
| “The Woman Who Talks to Her Dog at the Beach” • Geoff Inverarity • Geist 113 |
[Thanks to F. J. Bergmann for the story.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Congrats to the three nominees published in Amazing Stories – Tyler Hagemann – The Day the Animals Turned to Sand; Clara Blackwood – The Girl who Loved Birds; Darrell Schweitzer – Where Have the Space Heroes Gone?