Kopaska-Merkel Named SFPA Grand Master

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.