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F. J. Bergmann Named SFPA Grand Master; Wins Lifetime Service Award

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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has bestowed to honors on F.J. Bergmann, the SFPA Grandmaster Award and the President’s Lifetime Service Award.

The SFPA Grand Master Award recognizes the contributions in poetry that a person has made in their lifetime. Their superior skill and a body of work are testaments to talent and a resource for inspiring other poets and furthering knowledge of the genre.
 
The President’s Lifetime Service Award is given to an individual who has furthered the knowledge, appreciation, and acceptance of the speculative poetry genre, and who has served the SFPA in a significant volunteer capacity.  
 
Members vote on nominees for the Grand Master Award; and upon the President’s recommendation, the executive committee votes on the Lifetime Service Award candidate. F. J. Bergmann is the recipient of both awards for 2024.

She has served the SFPA behind the scenes for many years. She has been on the board, has been Elgin Chair, Rhysling editor, and does the layout and graphic design for the SFPA publications. She was webmaster for many years, and continues to be a pillar for the SFPA. Her ongoing, selfless volunteerism will inspire others to contribute to the genre and the SFPA. She has contributed to discussions and frequently posts about other poems and poets, spreading the love and knowledge of speculative poetry. She works as editor on other publications, and her body of work speaks for itself. She has won most of the SFPA awards as well as the contest and continues to write and contribute to the speculative poetry genre in many ways.

F. J. Bergmann

F. J. Bergmann is the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com), past editor of Star*Line, managing editor of MadHat Press (madhat-press.com), poetry editor for Weird House Press (weirdhousepress.com), and freelances as a copy editor and book designer. She lives in Wisconsin with a husband, intermittent daughters, cats and a horse, and imagines tragedies on or near exoplanets. Her writing awards include SFPA Rhysling Awards for both long and short poems and SFPA Elgin Awards for two chapbooks: Out of the Black Forest (Centennial Press, 2012), a collection of conflated fairy tales, and A Catalogue of the Further Suns, first-contact reports from interstellar expeditions, winner of the 2017 Gold Line Press manuscript competition. She was a Writers of the Future winner. Venues where her poems have appeared include Abyss & Apex, Analog, Asimov’s SF, and elsewhere in the alphabet. She has competed at National Poetry Slam with the Madison Urban Spoken Word slam team. While lacking academic literary qualifications, she is kind to those so encumbered. She thinks imagination can compensate for anything.

To date, the SFPA has conferred twelve Grand Master Awards. The previous eleven are:

  • Akua Lezli Hope (2022)
  • Mary Soon Lee (2022)
  • Linda D. Addison (2020)
  • Ann K. Schwader (2018)
  • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2017)
  • Marge Simon (2015)
  • Steve Sneyd (2015)
  • Jane Yolen (2010)
  • Ray Bradbury (2008)
  • Robert Frazier (2005)
  • Bruce Boston (1999)

[Based on a press release.]

SFPAs 2024 Grand Master Nominees

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Voting continues through January 31 as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Five candidates are under consideration: F. J. Bergmann, G.O. Clark, Terry A. Garey, Deborah P Kolodji, and Geoffrey Landis.

F. J. BERGMANN

F. J. Bergmann

F. J. Bergmann‘s speculative poetry has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s SF, Dreams and Nightmares, Spectral Realms, Weird Tales, and many other magazines. She has won SFPA’s Rhysling Award in both long and short categories, the Elgin award for best chapbook (2x), and the SFPA Poetry Contest in the dwarf, short and long categories. Her poetry has won the Rannu Award for Speculative Poetry, the Gold Line Press poetry chapbook contest, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets contests, the Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, the Mary Roberts Rinehart National Poetry Award, and many others, and has received 14 Pushcart Prize nominations. F. J. was also the editor of Star*Line (2012–2017 and 2020–2021) and co-editor of The 2022 Rhysling Anthology. Her speculative chapbooks include Shelf Life (Space Cowboy Books, 2023), A Catalogue of the Further Suns (Gold Line Press, 2017) and Out of the Black Forest (Centennial Press, 2012).

G.O. CLARK

G. O. Clark

G. O. Clark‘s writing has been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, Talebones Magazine, Strange Horizons, Dreams & Nightmares, Space & Time, A Sea Of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock, Midnight Under The Bigtop, The Best Of Lovecraftiana (GB) and many other speculative publications over the past 30 years. He’s the author of fifteen poetry collections, including “Tombstone: Selected Horror Poems” (2022), Weird House Press, and, Easy Travel To The Stars, (2020), Alban Lake Publishing. His reviews of SF and Horror poetry collections appeared in Star*Line from 1997 – 2013, and, Small Press Review, 2000 – 2003. He won the Asimov’s Readers Award for poetry in 2001, was a 2011 Stoker Award poetry Finalist, and, has been a repeat Rhysling and Stoker Award nominee. He was also an Elgin Award runner up for both chapbook and full-length collections; 2018 and 2020 respectively. SFPA member since 1994. https://goclarkpoet.weebly.com/

TERRY A. GAREY

Terry A. Garey has been writing and editing speculative poetry since the 1980s. Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Aliens and Lovers, Asimov’s, Burning With A Vision, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, Dodeca, Dreams and Nightmares, Lady Poetesses from Hell, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Pandora, Paper Bag Writer, Raw Sacks, Serve it Forth: Cooking with Anne McCaffrey, Star*Line, Tales of the Unanticipated, Uranus, Weird Tales, and Women en Large. She wrote three introductions (as editor or co-editor) to speculative poetry anthologies, Time Gum (1988), Time Frames (1991), and Lady Poetesses from Hell (2012). She edited or co-edited the speculative anthologies Paper Bag Writer (1990) and Raw Sacks (1991). She was Poetry Editor for Tales of the Unanticipated during it’s first years (1986-2002). Of Terry’s four Rhysling nominations, she earned first place in 2013 for her short poem “The Cat Star” and first place in 1997 for her long poem “Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes.” Her poetry is collected in The Cat Star and Other Poems (crumbfairy press, 2022). https://www.joyofwine.net/poetry.htm

DEBORAH P KOLODJI 

Deborah P. Kolodji

Deborah P Kolodji is the author of more than 1000 haiku and speculative poems. Her speculative poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Grievous Angel, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Tales of the Unanticipated, Tales of the Talisman, and Dreams and Nightmares, as well as mainstream magazines such as Rattle. Her fantasy scifaiku “Basho After Cinderella (iii)” placed first in the 2013 Dwarf Stars Awards and was collected in Nebula Awards Showcase 2015, and she has won numerous haiku awards. Her early writing included Star Trek inspired poetry for fanzines in the 1970s. Her poetry collections include Tug of a Black Hole (Title IX Press, 2021), Highway of Sleeping Towns (Shabda Press, 2016), Red Planet Dust (2007), Symphony of the Universe (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2006), Unfinished Book (Shadows Ink Publications, 2006), and Seaside Moon (Saki Press, 2004). https://deborahpkolodji.weebly.com/

GEOFFREY LANDIS 

Geoffrey A. Landis

Geoffrey Landis has had a significant body of poetry published over the last thirty-plus years, as evinced by his winning the Rhysling award twice, the Asimov’s Reader’s Award for best poem four times, and the Dwarf Stars Award. His poetry has appeared in Asimov’s Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Astropoetica, Electric Velocipede, Goblin Fruit, Kaleidotrope, and Star*Line, among other places, and has been selected for Best of Ohio and the Year’s Best Fantasy volumes.

In addition to writing poetry, he has contributed to the SFPA by editing Eye to the Telescope and co-editing the 2012 Dwarf Stars anthology. He is active in the Cleveland poetry community, and for many years ran the Clevelandpoetics blog, which distributes news and information about poetry in northern Ohio; he has also been active in workshops and readings in the Cleveland area, and participating in the Ohio Poetry Day celebrations. He has published two collections of poetry, Iron Angels in 2009 from Van Zeno, and The Book of Whimsy in 2015 from Night Ballet. http://www.geoffreylandis.com/

To date, the SFPA has conferred eleven Grand Master Awards:

  • Akua Lezli Hope (2022)
  • Mary Soon Lee (2022)
  • Linda D. Addison (2020)
  • Ann K. Schwader (2018)
  • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2017)
  • Marge Simon (2015)
  • Steve Sneyd (2015)
  • Jane Yolen (2010)
  • Ray Bradbury (2008)
  • Robert Frazier (2005)
  • Bruce Boston (1999)

[Based on a press release.]

Akua Lezli Hope and Mary Soon Lee Named SFPA Grand Masters

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Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members have honored Akua Lezli Hope and Mary Soon Lee as their 2022 Grand Masters. Two Grand Masters were selected due to a tie vote by the membership.

Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope, a creator and wisdom seeker, has been in print since 1974 with over 450 poems published. She wrote her first speculative poems in the sixth grade and was a member of the SFPA in the 80s, appearing in Star*Line and Asimov’s back then. Her collections include Embouchure: Poems on Jazz and Other Musics (Writer’s Digest book award winner), Them Gone (Sundress Publications 2018) , Otherwheres: Speculative Poetry (2021 Elgin Award winner), & Stratospherics (micro-chapbook of scifaiku @Quarantine Public Library). A Cave Canem fellow, her honors include the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association award & multiple Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. She won a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts grant to create Afrofuturist, speculative, pastoral poetry.

She created Speculative Sundays, an online poetry reading series. She edited the record-breaking sea-themed issue of Eye To The Telescope #42 (www.eyetothetelescope.com) & NOMBONO: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators, the history-making first of its kind (www.sundresspublications.com/e-anthologies/nombono Sundress Publications, 2021). Her work has also been published in numerous literary magazines and national anthologies, including: Africa Risen (Tor, 2022), Black Fire This Time (2022), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The 100 Best African American Poems; Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora; Asimov’s Science Fiction; Gyroscope Review, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, SciFaikuest, Eye to the Telescope, The New Verse News, Breath & Shadow, The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop, The Cossack Review, Silver Blade Magazine, Stone Canoe, Panoply, Penumbra, About Place and Three Coyotes, among many others.

She is working on three new speculative poetry anthologies for 2023: Speculative Cats Volume 1 with LindaAnn Schiavo (speculativecats.com); Arboreal Dreams (speculativetrees.com); and Black Multiverse (blackmultiverse.org).

From Grand Master Akua Lezli Hope: “I am deeply honored and affirmed by this fabulous recognition. My first literature was speculative poetry as I learned and sang Mother Goose nursery rhymes, hand clap and jump rope chants. In elementary school I read Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984, and Alice in Wonderful. Jabberwocky cracked open a world of language’s possibilities to me. I wrote my first speculative poems in the sixth grade and for my 50th high school reunion, our literary magazine was shared and there were two of my science fiction short stores, both beginning with speculative poems.

“Speculative poetry, like its sibling speculative fiction, serves not only the imagination but the soul. It enables us to articulate the ineffable, to capture elusive as well as re/present the many issues, both transcendent and mundane that we struggle to understand and resolve. As a young poet, I was charged to SERVE VERSE and this award is a sweet acknowledgment on this journey. A lifetime member, I am so glad that the SFPA exists to support this work and grateful for the many volunteers who sustain and support this creative community. Thank you, dear poet mages, sages, magicians and technicians.”

Mary Soon Lee

Mary Soon Lee

Mary Soon Lee is a gifted fantasy and science fiction author of both stories and poetry. She has won the Elgin, Rhysling and Dwarf Star Awards as well as twice winning the AnLab Readers’ Award. Her has appeared in many speculative publications including Analog, Asimov’s, Daily Science Fiction, F&SF, Fireside, New Myths Penumbric, Rune, Star*Line, and Strange Horizons, Uncanny, as well as Science, among others. Her writing continues to raise the bar for poetry.

Winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, her stunning collection, The Sign of the Dragon is an epic fantasy told in poetry. She says “Of all the things I’ve written, it’s the one that matters most to me. It began with a single poem about a boy chosen by a dragon to be king. I meant the poem to be a standalone piece, but the boy stayed with me, and I returned and wrote more, and more, and more poems about him. Over three hundred poems in the end.” About her deft and lovely, Elemental Haiku “Lee has a magisterial ability to impart facts clearly, concisely and engagingly. In these short poems she succeeds in conveying the distinctive characteristics of each element, their inter-relationships, their applications and their role in history, be it on a human, planetary or cosmic scale.”

Her work has earned numerous awards throughout her career, such as her 2022 short Rhysling win for “Confessions of a Spaceport AI. Her work is always engaging and evocative. She has a dry wit about the messiness of transcendence, evolution, one more day. Her approach is always skillfully certain, but kindly even gentle, as you are plunged into the essence of being and not being, strife and peace. She is a prolific, talented, and insightful poet.

From Grand Master Mary Soon Lee: “I’m at a loss for words, which is awkward for a writer! I’m very grateful to everyone who voted and to everyone who has encouraged me as a poet, and I am very very honored by this award — all the more so as I am receiving it in the company of Akua Lezli Hope, whom I greatly admire.

“I would like to say something profound about what poetry, especially speculative poetry, means to me. I would like to do so, but I was diagnosed with cancer in August and, while the prognosis is hopeful, I am several months into chemotherapy and not yet past the hump of surgery and radiation.

“So I will simply say, with feeling, *thank* you.”

[Based on a press release.]

SFPA’s 2022 Grand Master Nominees

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Voting continues as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Five candidates are under consideration: Akua Lezli Hope, Deborah P Kolodji, Mary Soon Lee, Peter Payack, and Terry A. Garey.

Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope, a creator and wisdom seeker, has been in print since 1974 with over 450 poems published. She wrote her first speculative poems in the sixth grade and was a member of the SFPA in the 80s, appearing in Star*Line and Asimov’s back then. Her collections include Embouchure: Poems on Jazz and Other Musics (Writer’s Digest book award winner), Them Gone (Sundress Publications 2018) , Otherwheres: Speculative Poetry (2021 Elgin Award winner), & Stratospherics (micro-chapbook of scifaiku @Quarantine Public Library). A Cave Canem fellow, her honors include the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association award & multiple Rhysling & Pushcart Prize nominations. She won a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts grant to create Afrofuturist, speculative, pastoral poetry.

She created Speculative Sundays, an online poetry reading series. She edited the record-breaking sea-themed issue of Eye To The Telescope #42 (www.eyetothetelescope.com) & NOMBONO: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators, the history-making first of its kind (www.sundresspublications.com/e-anthologies/nombono Sundress Publications, 2021). Her work has also been published in numerous literary magazines and national anthologies, including: Africa Risen (Tor, 2022), Black Fire This Time (2022), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The 100 Best African American Poems; Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora; Asimov’s Science Fiction; Gyroscope Review, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, SciFaikuest, Eye to the Telescope, The New Verse News, Breath & Shadow, The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop, The Cossack Review, Silver Blade Magazine, Stone Canoe, Panoply, Penumbra, About Place and Three Coyotes, among many others.

She is working on three new speculative poetry anthologies for 2023: Speculative Cats Volume 1 with LindaAnn Schiavo (speculativecats.com); Arboreal Dreams (speculativetrees.com); and Black Multiverse (blackmultiverse.org).

For further information, please see Akua’s website.

Deborah P Kolodji

Deborah P Kolodji served as president of the SFPA from 2006 – 2011. While president, she established the Dwarf Stars Award. Kolodji has also acted as editor or co-editor of multiple anthologies of speculative verse, including several volumes of the Dwarf Stars anthologies. She also co-founded Eye to the Telescope.

In addition to many awards and recognition for her haiku, Kolodji’s fantasy scifaiku “Basho After Cinderella (iii)” placed first in the 2013 Dwarf Stars Awards and was collected in Nebula Awards Showcase 2015. Her early writing included Star Trek inspired poetry for fanzines in the 1970s. Her poetry collections include Tug of a Black Hole (Title IX Press, 2021), Highway of Sleeping Towns (Shabda Press, 2016), Red Planet Dust (2007), and Symphony of the Universe (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2006), Unfinished Book (Shadows Ink Publications, 2006), and Seaside Moon (Saki Press, 2004).

She’s also generous with new poets and with giving back to the poetry community. She has increased the reach of short-form science fiction poetry in the mainstream haiku and senryu community, and is regularly consulted in this capacity:

www.poetrypea.com/s5e7-scifaiku-a-workshop-with-deborah-p-kolodji/

www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/31563c5175b2578b10d2826c6a4ca643.pdf
(see pgs 75-94)

In short, Debbie is a rock star in the short-form sci-fi poetry community!

For further information, please see Deborah’s website.

Mary Soon Lee

Mary Soon Lee is a gifted fantasy and science fiction author of both stories and poetry. She has won the Elgin Rhysling and Dwarf Star Awards as well as twice winning the AnLab Readers’ Award. Her has appeared in many speculative publications including Analog, Asimov’s, Daily Science Fiction, F&SF, Fireside, New Myths Penumbric, Rune, Star*Line, and Strange Horizons, Uncanny, as well as Science, among others. Her writing continues to raise the bar for poetry.

Winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, her stunning collection, The Sign of the Dragon is an epic fantasy told in poetry. She says “Of all the things I’ve written, it’s the one that matters most to me. It began with a single poem about a boy chosen by a dragon to be king. I meant the poem to be a standalone piece, but the boy stayed with me, and I returned and wrote more, and more, and more poems about him. Over three hundred poems in the end.” About her deft and lovely, Elemental Haiku “Lee has a magisterial ability to impart facts clearly, concisely and engagingly. In these short poems she succeeds in conveying the distinctive characteristics of each element, their inter-relationships, their applications and their role in history, be it on a human, planetary or cosmic scale.”

Her work has earned numerous awards throughout her career, such as her 2022 short Rhysling win for “Confessions of a Spaceport AI. Her work is always engaging and evocative. She has a dry wit about the messiness of transcendence, evolution, one more day. Her approach is always skillfully certain, but kindly even gentle, as you are plunged into the essence of being and not being, strife and peace. She is a prolific, talented, and insightful poet.

For further information, please see Mary’s website.

Peter Payack

Peter Payack is a harbinger of the future of science fiction poetry. And has been for the past fifty years. His science fiction poetry has consistently helped define the genre, having been published, for example, in Asimov’s Science Fiction for six decades, and co-winning the Rhysling award for the Best Science Fiction Poem of the Year in 1980. This was the much-anthologized Migration of Darkness, named by Quirk Books as the number one poem that unites science and art!

Payack brings into the 21st century the ancient Greek traditions of the “rhapsodes,” itinerant poets who would travel from festival to festival along the Greek coast, singing the Homeric hymns in the marketplace (agora), making the measured cadences of Homer accessible, understandable, and easier to memorize; sometimes even employing rhythm sticks to emphasize the measured cadences of the ancient text.

To Payack, the post-modern marketplace consists of the printed page, the night sky, subway walls, the Stonehenge monolith, telephone lines, orbiting satellites and, even consumable art (fortunes cookies). Indeed, one critic described Payack’s “lifelong mission to lift poetry off the printed page.” As one example, his STAR-POEMS! (as commissioned by M.I.T.’s Center for Visual Studies) has flown short science fiction poems in the night time sky over Boston, New York and Delphi Greece.

Michael Benedikt, The Poetry Editor of the Paris Review, has written, “Payack’s genuine concern for the place of Humankind in the cosmos is intermixed with much high wit.” The Boston Phoenix exclaimed, “To read Payack is to embark upon a philosophical wild ride designed to shake loose all your assumptions and open your eyes to new ways of seeing the universe.” The Harvard Crimson proclaimed: “Payack’s intellectual curiosity has led him to read about ancient Philosophy and modern science – knowledge he incorporates into the Payack Version of the Universe.” And The Boston Globe wrote “Peter Payack Blends High Tech with New Age,” and in another article called him “The Space Age Poet”.

This accessibility has led to his election as the first Poet Populist of Cambridge, Massachusetts. And there is good reason why he is – though his “Phone-a-Poem” collection is housed at Harvard’s esteemed Woodberry Poetry Room, Payack is no Ivy-tower elitist. You would you never find Payack holding court in a dissolute state at the local pub. He is too busy lecturing on courses in English and Scientific Communications at two of Boston’s fine universities.

For further information, please see Peter’s website.

Terry A. Garey

Beginning in the 1980s, Terry A. Garey has been one of the most influential organizers of the speculative poetry movement. A pioneering editor of speculative poetry, she served as the first poetry editor of Tales of the Unanticipated (1986 to 1991) and for Janus, and was active in WisCon from its 1977 inception, hosting well-attended poetry workshops in the 80s and 90s.

Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including Dodeca, Uranus, Star*Line, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Raw Sacks, Paper Bag Writer, Dreams and Nightmares, Women en Large, and the critically acclaimed Burning With A Vision. Her anthologies, Time Gum, 1988, and Time Frames, 1991, are important introductions to the genre. Her particular oeuvre is an intergalactic variation on domestic fabulation where she used her own domestic experience as a launch pad for her poems and then showcased them as a founding member of the highly regarded poetry performance group Lady Poetesses from Hell. Of her four Rhysling nominations, she earned first place in 2013 for her short poem “The Cat Star” and first place in 1997 for her long poem “Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes.”

For further information, please see Terry’s website.

To date, the SFPA has conferred nine Grand Master Awards:

  • Linda D. Addison (2020)
  • Ann K. Schwader (2018)
  • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2017)
  • Marge Simon & Steve Sneyd (2015)
  • Jane Yolen (2010)
  • Ray Bradbury (2008)
  • Robert Frazier (2005)
  • Bruce Boston (1999)

Addison Named SFPA
Grand Master

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Linda Addison. Photo by Brian J. Addison

Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members have honored Linda Addison as their 2020 Grand Master.

Addison accepted the award saying:

I’m speechless and overwhelmed with joy to be selected as the 2020 SFPA Grandmaster! I didn’t dare dream about this happening, because the other three candidates are so extremely talented and I personally love their work. All my gratitude to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association officers and membership for this incredible honor.

Linda Addison is the award-winning author of five collections, including The Place of Broken Things, written with Alessandro Manzetti, and How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend.

She previously received the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and is the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®. Addison is co-editor of Sycorax’s Daughters, an anthology of horror fiction & poetry by African-American women, poetry editor of Space & Time Magazine since 2000, and editor of the 2018 Rhysling Anthology and the HWA StokerCon Anthology 2019.

Addison is a founding member of the writer’s group Circles in the Hair (CITH), and a member of HWA, SFWA and SFPA.

She has a B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University and currently lives in Arizona.

SFPA’s 2020 Grand Master Nominees

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Voting continues as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Four candidates are under consideration: Linda Addison, F.J. Bergmann, Geoffrey A. Landis, and John Grey.  SFPA members have until December 1 to cast their ballots.

  • Linda Addison
Linda Addison

Linda D. Addison is the award-winning author of five collections, including The Place of Broken Things, written with Alessandro Manzetti, & How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, and a recipient of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®, co-editor of Sycorax’s Daughters, an anthology of horror fiction & poetry by African- American women, poetry editor of Space & Time Magazine since 2000, and editor of the 2018 Rhysling Anthology and the HWA StokerCon Anthology 2019. Her work has made frequent appearances over the years on the honorable mention list for Year’s Best anthology. She has a B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University and currently lives in Arizona. Addison is a founding member of the writer’s group Circles in the Hair (CITH), and a member of HWA, SFWA and SFPA. For further information please see Linda’s website.

  • F. J. Bergmann
F. J. Bergmann

F. J. Bergmann has a distinguished body of speculative poetry from the last 20 years, winning the Rhysling (Short and Long), the Elgin Chapbook (twice), the SFPA Poetry Contest (several), and other contests. Her service to SFPA includes editing Star*Line, designing publications, and serving as webmaster and VP. Nor is her service to poetry limited to the SFPA.

  • Geoffrey A. Landis

Geoffrey A. Landis has had a strong body of work published over the last thirty-plus years, noted by his winning the Rhysling Long twice, the Asimov’s Reader’s Award for best poem four times, and the Dwarf Stars Award. In addition to his excellence in writing poetry, he has contributed to the SFPA by editing Eye to the Telescope and co-editing the 2012 Dwarf Stars anthology. He is active in the Cleveland poetry community, and for many years has run the Clevelandpoetics blog, which distributes news and information about poetry in the Cleveland area; he has also been active in the Ohio Poetry Day celebrations. He has published two collections of poetry, Iron Angels (Van Zeno, 2009) and The Book of Whimsy (Night Ballet, 2015). For more for more about Geoffrey visit his website.

  • John Grey

John Grey is Australian-born, U.S. resident, poet, short story writer, musician and playwright. He has had over 16,000 poems published throughout the world in magazines as diverse as Christian Science Monitor, Relix, Poetry East, Agni, Rhino, Rattle, Poet Lore and JAMA as well as numerous anthologies and books, including his latest, Leaves On Pages. A good percentage of those poems have been in genre magazines, (both sci-fi and horror, with the occasional fantasy) having grown up devouring the classic horror writers such as Blackwood, James, Bierce, Poe, etc. Publications in this field include work in Weird Tales, Space & Time, Dreams and Nightmares, The Pedestal, The Magazine Of Speculative Poetry, The Fifth Di, Leading Edge, Andromeda Spaceways, Not One Of Us, Strange Horizons, Chrome Baby and many many many more. Winner of the Rhysling Award (Short) in 1998. Was theater critic and poetry columnist for a local Providence, RI, weekly arts magazine and has had plays produced off-off Broadway and in Los Angeles.

Schwader Named SFPA Grand Master

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Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members have honored Ann K. Schwader as their 2018 Grand Master.

Ann K. Schwader

Ann K. Schwader is a two-time Rhysling Award winner (short form 2010, long form 2016) and a two-time Bram Stoker Award Finalist for her weird/dark SF poetry collections Dark Energies (P’rea Press 2015) and Wild Hunt of the Stars (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2010.

Schwader is SFPA’s eighth Grand Master, joining David C. Kopaska Merkel (2017), Steve Sneyd and Marge Simon (2015), Jane Yolen (2010), Ray Bradbury (2008), Robert Frazier (2005) and Bruce Boston (1999).

She shared her early inspirations with the Innsmouth Free Press in a “poetic interview”:

IFP: A pondered start:
Noteworthy fears and verse?
Name key roads you sought.

AKS:The dark in science/science in the dark
Of minds too blind to see the beast inside
Each one of us. Was HPL dead right?

The straightest path is Avon’s bard, although
A “fatal interview “with E. St. V.
Millay marked out my first uncertain trail….

A lifelong resident of the Rocky Mountains, Schwader lives in Westminster, CO.

[Thanks to F.J. Bergmann for the story.]

SFPA’s 2018 Grand Master Nominees

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Voting continues as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Three candidates are under consideration: Ann K. Schwader, David Lunde, and LeRoy Gorman.

  • Ann K. Schwader is a two-time Rhysling Award winner (short form 2010, long form 2016) and a two-time Bram Stoker Award Finalist for her weird/dark SF poetry collections Dark Energies (P’rea Press 2015) andWild Hunt of the Stars (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2010. Her other poetry collections include Twisted in Dream (Hippocampus Press, 2011), the SF/Lovecraftian sonnet sequence In the Yaddith Time (Mythos Books, 2007), Architectures of Night (Dark Regions Press, 2003), The Worms Remember (Hive Press, 2001), and Werewoman (Nocturnal Publications, 1990). In company with Keith Allen Daniels and Jerry H. Jenkins, she made up one-third of The Weird Sonneteers (Anamnesis Press, 2000). A selection of her SF verse also appeared in Time Frames (Rune Press, 1991). She has contributed dark verse to several Chaosium Press anthologies — Mark of the Beast, The Nyarlathotep Cycle, The Innsmouth Cycle, and The Book of Eibon — as well as to She Walks in Shadows (Innsmouth Free Press, 2015), Tales of Jack the Ripper (Word Horde, 2013), Deepest Darkest Eden (Miskatonic River Press, 2013), A Season in Carcosa (Miskatonic River Press, 2012), Fungi (Innsmouth Free Press, 2012), Horror for the Holidays (Miskatonic River Press, 2011), Candle in the Attic Window (Innsmouth Free Press, 2011), and Future Lovecraft (Innsmouth FreePress, 2011). She was also Poet Laureate for NecronomiCon Providence(2015).

Her most recent weird fiction collection is Dark Equinox & Other Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (Hippocampus Press, 2015). An earlier collection, Strange Stars & Alien Shadows (Lindisfarne Press) appeared in 2003.

Her mainstream haiku have also appeared in several anthologies, including Haiku 2015 (Modern Haiku Press, 2015), Haiku in English (Norton, 2013), and Haiku 21 (Modern Haiku Press, 2011).

A lifelong resident of the Rocky Mountains, Ann lives, writes, and volunteers at her local branch library in Westminster, CO.

  • LeRoy Gorman lives in Napanee, Ontario, Canada. He was born in Smiths Falls, Ontario in 1949 and raised on a farm near Merrickville. After graduating from Carleton and Queen’s universities, he embarked on a 38-year teaching career, beginning with the Ontario Ministry of Correctional Services and ending with the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board. His poetry, much of it visual (mostly minimalist and haiku, or haiku-like), has appeared in print since 1976 in various presentations worldwide, and has garnered numerous awards. His visual poetry has also been displayed in exhibitions, internationally. A few of his two dozen published poetry books and chapbooks include: whose smile the ripple warps, wind in the keys, heart’s garden, and fast enough to leave this world. He is also past editor of Haiku Canada Publications (Haiku Canada Newsletter 1995 to 2006, Haiku Canada Review 2007 to 2017, various annual anthologies and broadsides). Since 1998, he has published poetry leaflets and postcards under his PawEpress imprint. In addition to writing under his own name, he has published under at least 50 pseudonyms. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, the Haiku Society of America, and a life member of Haiku Canada. In 2012-2013, LeRoy Gorman was appointed honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento ”in recognition of his devotion to and enthusiasm for haiku development and exploration in Canada, with exemplary influence upon all English-language haiku across North America and abroad through his publications and editing, and his decades-long support of the Haiku Canada organization. His poetry consistently shows admirable creativity, courage, and range, embracing both traditional and visual/minimalist approaches to haiku and related genres of poetry.”
  • David Lunde was born in Berkeley, California in 1941 and raised in Saudi Arabia, where his father was an engineer with the Arabian American Oil Co. After graduating from Knox College in 1963, he attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop on the recommendation of Archibald MacLeish, where he studied poetry, fiction writing and translation and received his M.F.A. in 1967. In his second year, he was awarded the Old Gold Fellowship in Writing, which paid his tuition for a year. After that, he supported himself by inking charts and graphs of satellite data for Dr. James A. Van Allen in the Physics and Astronomy Department, and occasionally babysitting for Kurt Vonnegut. After graduation, he taught English literature and creative writing, and directed the creative writing program at SUNY @ Fredonia. While there, he and Theodore Burtt, Jr. founded The Basilisk Press, which published 13 books of poetry by authors from all over the United States. He was also Managing Editor of Drama and Theater magazine, Poetry Editor of The Riverside Quarterly and Contributing Editor of Escarpments. Upon retiring in 2001, he moved to North Bend, Oregon with his wife, fantasy novelist Patricia A. McKillip.

Approximately 1,000 of Lunde’s poems, stories, articles and translations have appeared internationally in more than 250 periodicals, and 40 anthologies. He has published eight books of poems, and in collaboration with Prof. Mary M.Y. Fung, The Carving of Insects, a translation of the collected poems of the 20th C. Chinese poet Bian Zhilin, which won the 2007 PEN USA Translation Award. Past awards include the Academy of American Poets Prize, and two Rhysling Awards for Best Science Fiction Poem of the Year. Another collection of Lunde’s Chinese translations, Breaking the Willow, was published in fall 2008, and in 2011 he and two fellow translators, Geoffrey Waters and Michael Farman, published a new translation of the classic Chinese anthology 300 Tang Poems.

David’s published books include Ironic Holidays (Sariya Press, 1965, chapbook, hand printed by author); Les Papillons (Lupo Press, 1965, chapbook illustrated and hand printed by Philip Powell); Sludge Gulper 1 (The Basilisk Press, 1971); Calibrations (Allegany Mountain Press, 1981); Blues for Port City (Mayapple Press, 1995,(chapbook of SF poetry); Heart Transplants & Other Misappropriations (Mellen Poetry Press, 1996); Nightfishing in Great Sky River: poems of inner and outer space (Anamnesis Press, 1999); The Carving of Insects (by Bian Zhilin, 2006; translated by Mary M.Y. Fung and David Lunde); Instead: Poems by David Lunde (Mayapple Press, 2007); Breaking the Willow: Poems of Parting, Exile, Separation & Reunion (White Pine Press, 2008. Translated by David Lunde); plus 300 Tang Poems (White Pine Press, 2011; co-translated by Geoffrey Waters, Michael Farman and David Lunde). Forthcoming novels are The Grandson of Heinrich Schliemann & Other Truths and Fictions, a collection of prose, poems and flash fiction (Mayapple Press, Spring 2014) and A Full Load of Moonlight, a collection of Chan (Zen) Buddhist poetry translated by Mary M.Y. Fung and David Lunde (Musical Stones Culture, Ltd., publication date uncertain).

An SFPA Grand Master designation may be conferred by the SFPA President with consensus of the membership to an individual living at the time of selection whose body of work shall reflect the highest artistic goals of the SFPA, who shall have been actively publishing within the target genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a period of no fewer than 20 years, and whose poetry has been noted to be exceptional in merit, scope, vision and innovation.

To date, the SFPA has conferred seven Grand Master Awards, to David C. Kopaska Merkel (2017), Steve Sneyd and Marge Simon (2015), Jane Yolen (2010), Ray Bradbury (2008), Robert Frazier (2005) and Bruce Boston (1999).

Kopaska-Merkel Named SFPA Grand Master

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David C. Kopaska-Merkel has been voted the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master of 2017.

Kopaska-Merkel is SFPA’s seventh grand master, joining Marge Simon (2015), Steve Sneyd (2015), Jane Yolen (2010), Ray Bradbury (2008), Robert Frazier (2005), and Bruce Boston (1999).

He was nominated by Herb Kauderer, whose text is the basis for the award citation:

David C. Kopaska-Merkel’s dedicated work has helped SFPA alive, serving first as Star*Line editor from 1996-2002, and then as President. In 1986 David founded Dreams & Nightmares (D&N), one of the best and most enduring venues for speculative poetry, and has edited and published the magazine for more than thirty years, with the current issue numbered 105. D&N has encouraged new poets and artists and paid prozine rates while doing it. David has published extensively in most major markets, and won the Rhysling Long Poem award with Kendall Evans in 2006 for “The Tin Men” while Luminosity was a nominee for the 2014 Elgin Award. He also maintains a poetry blog and was a featured poet guest at ICFA, 2013. For exceptional service to SFPA and speculative poetry, as publisher and editor, and for a large body of excellent poems, David C. Kopaska-Merkel is nominated for the SFPA Grand Master Award.”

Click the link for a selection of David’s poems.

SFPA’S 2017 Grand Master Candidates

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Voting continues as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Four candidates are under consideration,

  • Ruth Berman is a long-time (since at least 1983) and award-winning member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She is a writer of short science fiction and speculative poetry. In 2003 for “Potherb Gardening” and in 2016 for “Time Travel Vocabulary Problems”, she won the Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem. She was also the winner of the 2006 Dwarf Stars Award for her poem “Knowledge Of.” Her short fiction has appeared in Analog, New Worlds, Star Trek: The New Voyages, Shadows 2,Tales of the Unanticipated, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. Ruth Berman has also been on the faculty of the University of Minnesota. She was one of the founding members of The Rivendell Group in 1973. She was also a founding member of Minn-Stf, the local Minnesota Science Fiction Society, and has been extensively involved with helping the Minnesota speculative literary scene become what it is today. A selection of Ruth’s poems.
  • Terry A. Garey is a longstanding member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, providing poetry workshops singularly and with her performance group, the Lady Poetesses From Hell. She is a writer and editor. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies going back to at least 1978. She won the Rhysling Award in 1997 for “Spotting UFOs While Canning Tomatoes” and in 2013 for “The Cat Star.” She has edited poetry for Tales of the Unanticipated and speculative poetry anthologies including Time Gum, 1988, ed. Terry A. Garey and Eleanor Arnason, and Time Frames, 1991. Her non-fiction book, The Joy of Home Winemaking, has little to do with poetry, but is fun and instructive if you want to make wine. She lives with a librarian, two cats and many books in Minneapolis. A selection of Terry’s poems.
  • David C. Kopaska-Merkel’s poems have populated many magazines over two or more decades. He won the Rhysling Long Poem award with Kendall Evans in 2006 for “The Tin Men.” He was a nominee for the 2014 Elgin Award for Luminosity, and his The Edible Zoo placed 2nd and 3rd in 2013 and 2012 respectively. His dedicated work has helped keep the SFPA alive for years, serving first as Star*Line editor and then as President, plus maintaining Dreams & Nightmares, a quality magazine (the longest running print SFP magazine) that publishes spec poetry from one and all—without prejudice, encouraging new artists as well, for prozine pay out of his own pocket—and a poetry blog. He was a featured poet guest at ICFA, 2013. He serves as Chair and editor of the 2017 Rhysling Award and Rhysling Anthology.
  • Ann K. Schwader is an extraordinarily accomplished member of the SFPA. Her fiction and verse have been published in such magazines as Spectral Realms, Weirdbook, The Lovecraft EZine, Fungi, Weird Fiction Review, Dark Wisdom, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Dreams & Nightmares, Mythic Delirium, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Tales of the Unanticipated, The Weird Fiction Review, Star*Line, and Space & Time. Her mainstream haiku have recently appeared in countless specialized journals. Her most recent collection of weird verse, Dark Energies, was published by P’rea Press in August 2015 and a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. An omnibus collection, Twisted In Dream (Hippocampus Press, 2011); Wild Hunt of the Stars (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2010), a collection of dark science fiction poems was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for that year; her SF / Lovecraftian sonnet sequence, In the Yaddith Time (Mythos Books, 2007), preceded. She has won the Rhysling Award on two occasions: 2016 Long Form (tie) “Keziah” and 2010 Short Form “To Theia”. Her poetry has been nominated for and garnered 2nd or 3rd in the Rhysling Award at least 3 other times. Her collection Dark Energies received 3rd place in the 2016 Elgin Award.

[Thanks to F.J. Bergmann for assisting with the story.]