Anthology Information
Editor: Miguel O. Mitchell
Cover Art: "Running Man" by Pamela Gordimer
Layout: F. J. Bergmann
Publisher: Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association
Award Winners
1st Place
Perish and Live Forever • Pedro Iniguez • Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future (Space Cowboy Books)
2nd Place
[old junkyard] • Ngô Bình Anh Khoa • Star*Line 47.2
3rd Place
[warp drive folds spacetime] • Jean-Paul L. Garnier • Radon Journal 6
Honorable Mentions
Astrosommelier • R. Mac Jones • Star*Line 47.3
What Villains Read • Mary Soon Lee • Kaleidotrope, Autumn
Golden Shovel: Lon Chaney, Jr. as "The Wolf Man" • LindaAnn LoSchiavo • Altered Reality Magazine, Summer
Editor and Winner Biographies
Miguel O. Mitchell, PhD(he/his/him) is a Black speculative poet, SFF author, visual artist, and retired chemist. His poems have appeared in Amazing Stories, Dreams & Nightmares, Eye to the Telescope, FIYAH, Sauúti Terrors anthology, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, Scifaikuest, Star*Line, and the anthology Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2022). He has also published two poetry collections, Surrealia (Gnashing Teeth Publishing, 2024) and Periodic Table of Alien Species (Elements 1-86) (Barnes & Noble Press, 2021). Two of Miguel's poems, "A Descendant's Gift" and "Becoming," were nominated for the 2022 Rhysling Award in the Long Poem category, and "Max Returns to His Homeworld" (from Surrealia) was nominated for the same award in 2025. His poem “Wine Tasting on the Planet Ufahamu” (FIYAH, 2025) received Honorable Mention in the 2024 SFPA Poetry Contest.
In editorial roles, Miguel was 2023 Dwarf Stars Co-Editor (with David C. Kopaska-Merkel) and is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of SpecPoVerse: An International Journal of Speculative Poetry, https://specpoverse.org/
Jean-Paul L. Garnier is the owner of Space Cowboy Books bookstore and publishing house, producer of Simultaneous Times Podcast (2023 & 25 Laureate Award Winner, 2024 BSFA, Ignyte, and British Fantasy Award Finalist), and was the editor of the SFPA's Star*Line magazine from 2021-2025. He is currently the poetry editor of Worlds of IF & Galaxy magazines. In 2024 he won the Laureate Award for Best Editor. He has written many books of poetry and science fiction. https://spacecowboybooks.com/
Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American Bram Stoker, Elgin, and Dwarf Stars Award-winning science-fiction and horror writer from Los Angeles. He has also been a Rhysling finalist and Puschart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.
He is the author of MEXICANS ON THE MOON: SPECULATIVE POETRY FROM A POSSIBLE FUTURE, FEVER DREAMS OF A PARASITE, ECHOES AND EMBERS: SPECULATIVE STORIES, SYNTHETIC DAWNS & CRIMSON DUSKS, and the SF novel CONTROL THEORY.
Apart from leading writing workshops and speaking at several colleges, he has also been a sensitivity reader and has ghostwritten for award-winning apps and online clients.
Ngo Binh Anh Khoa is a teacher of English in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In his free time, he enjoys writing speculative poetry, and many of his works have appeared in Star*Line, Spectral Realms, Penumbric, and other venues. He also writes haiku, many of which have received honorable mentions or awards in the US, Japan, Canada, and elsewhere.
Table of Contents
- The Aeronaut • Wendy Van Camp • Worlds of IF
- [After decades …] • Yuliia Vereta • Dreams and Nightmares
- [all day rain] • Joshua St. Claire • Lothlorien Poetry Journal
- all things are a price • Eugen Bacon • Live Encounters
- [Before we reach …] • Brian U. Garrison • self-published online
- [bound with plaited grass] • F. J. Bergmann • SFPA Poetry Contest
- [cemetery row] • Rebecca Olson • StarLine
- Close Enough • Jason P. Burnham • StarLine
- A Consumption of Cancer • Sumiko Saulson • The Horror Zine
- Concrete Cuneiform Poem #1 • Robert Frazier • Sublimation
- [Confusion reigns …] • Alan Ira Gordon • Illumen
- Cosmic Nihilism • Jade Doumani • StarLine
- Down in the valley • Kate Boyes • SFPA Poetry Contest
- Dragon Teeth • Deborah L. Davitt • Sublimation
- Ember Mouths • Haley Bossé • The Engine
- Erehwon • LindaAnn LoSchiavo • Altered Reality Magazine
- [even in death] • Kimberly Kuchar • horror senryu journal
- [event horizon] • LeRoy Gorman • StarLine
- [Fairy ring on my lawn] • Denise Dumars • Dreams and Nightmares
- Familiar Moon • Greer Woodward • Spaceports and Spidersilk
- Familiar Spirit • Sarah Cannavo • SpecPoVerse
- [fangs poke through] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • Scifaikuest
- faraday cage • Angela Acosta • Wild Whispers Poetry Magazine
- [a field of scarecrows] • Brian Rosenberger • Haikuniverse
- [final curtain call] • Lisa Timpf • Scifaikuest
- Fire • Sandra J. Lindow • The Mythic Circle
- Forced Down Time • Herb Kauderer • Sublimation
- [forgotten empires] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • Scifaikuest
- [full moon] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • Scifaikuest
- The Gardener • John Reinhart • Eye to the Telescope 9
- Generational Ships • Jamal Hodge • Everything Endless (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
- [God closes a door] • Nicholas De Marino • StarLine
- [head in the Cloud] • Ngô Bình Anh Khoa • Scifaikuest
- [his blue eyes] • Sarah Cannavo • StarLine
- [his teeth] • Greg Schwartz • StarLine
- If the World Is Ending, Why Pretend? • Megan Cartwright • Radon Journal
- [immaculate spines] • Nicholas De Marino • horror senryu journal
- Immortality • LindaAnn LoSchiavo • Vampire Verses (Twisted Dreams Press)
- [increasing protein levels] • Royal Baysinger • Dreams and Nightmares
- Life and Death on Terra X • H. V. Patterson • StarLine
- [like a crooked bone] • Richard Magahiz • Five Fleas
- Machine Makers • Emma Lottie Hayes • Strange Horizons
- [many timelines] • Akua Lezli Hope • Scifaikuest
- [masked kids detonate] • Akua Lezli Hope • haikuniverse
- Merfolk • Randall Andrews • StarLine
- Miss Mason • Harris Coverley • Awen
- Mushroom lung • Yuliia Vereta • StarLine
- The mystery of the thermionic • Richard Magahiz • Songs of Eretz Poetry Review
- Neuroconvergence • L. Acadia • Vilas Avenue
- [the old work horse—] • Valentina Ranaldi-Adams • The Heron's Nest 14
- on becoming a constellation • Crystal Sidell • SpecPoVerse
- [on the alien’s list] • Lauren McBride • StarLine
- [one-way shapeshifting …] • Valentina Ranaldi-Adams • Leaf 15
- Outside Dimensions • Linda D. Addison • Everything Endless (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
- persephone triumphant • Clarabelle Miray Fields • Arcane Magick (Alien Buddha Press)
- Personal note • Richard Magahiz • Chrome Baby
- playing with mud • Deborah Karl-Brandt • Haiku Girl
- The Point of Measurement • Lynne Sargent • Baubles from Bones
- The Present • Ian Willey • StarLine
- [raging storm] • Greg Fewer • StarLine
- reader’s remorse • Brittany Hause • Dreams and Nightmares
- Relative • Randall Andrews • Abyss & Apex
- Rest • M. Frost • The Calendula Review
- [a roll in the hay] • Amber Winter • horror senryu journal
- The Scent of Home • Herb Kauderer • Sleepless Nights in the Dreamers Mall (Island of Wak-Wak)
- snapshots viewed through the stasis pod window • Marisca Pichette • Just Keep Up
- spacetime discontinuum • Howard V. Hendrix • StarLine
- [star popularity] • F. J. Bergmann • Dreams and Nightmares
- Starship Design • Frederick Charles Melancon • SpecPoVerse
- [sunrise clouds] • Chad Lee Robinson • horror senryu journal
- [supernova] • Mariel Herbert • StarLine
- This is just to say II • Colleen Anderson • Morsus Vitae
- [twilight] • Roger Dutcher • Modern Haiku
- Uses For a Bed of Cyborg Tulips • Robert Frazier • StarLine
- [a wave shifts …] • Anna Cates • StarLine
- What Black Holes Read • Mary Soon Lee • StarLine
- [the witching hour] • Miguel O. Mitchell • Halloween Haiku Challenge
- [wondering] • Lauren McBride • Scifaikuest
- [You are not] • Peter Payack • The Book of Conceptual Anarchy, Future Edition (self-published)
- *"Small Blue Poem" was included in the anthology, but had been published prior to 2025, and therefore ineligible
Nominations by Publication
114 poems were finalists for the year's award.