2015 Rhysling Anthology and Award

Anthology Information

Editor and Rhysling Chair: Rich Ristow

Book Design: F.J. Bergmann

Cover Image: Bob Freeman, occultdetective.com

Publisher: Science Fiction Poetry Association in cooperation with Hadrosaur Productions

ISBN: 978-1-885093-80-6

All Award Winners

Short Poem Category

First Place: “Shutdown” • Marge Simon • Qualia Nous, ed. Michael Bailey (Written Backwards, 2014)

Second Place: “Science Fiction (with apologies to Marianne Moore’s “Poetry”)” • Ruth Berman • Dreams and Nightmares 98

Third Place (tie): “I Imagine My Mother’s Death” • Bryan D. Dietrich • The Pedestal Magazine 74

Third Place (tie): “The Peal Divers” • Francesca Forrest • Strange Horizons, 3/17/14

Third Place (tie): “Extinction” • Joshua Gage • Star*Line 37.3

Third Place (tie): “After the Changeling Incantation” • John Philip Johnson • Strange Horizons, 2/3/

Long Poem Category

First Place: “100 Reasons to Have Sex with an Alien” • F.J. Bergmann • 2014 SFPA Poetry Contest

Second Place: “Six Things the Owl Said” • Megan Arkenberg • Goblin Fruit, Spring

Third Place: "The Perfect Library” • David Clink • If the World Were to Stop Spinning (Piquant Press)

Chair and Winner Biographies

a woman with styled grey hair, earrings, and dark sunglasses smiles

Marge Simon’s works appear in publications such as DailySF Magazine, Pedestal, Dreams & Nightmares. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side,” and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, 2010, and the SFPA’s Dwarf Stars Award, 2012. In addition to her poetry, she has published two prose collections: Christina's World (Sam’s Dot Publications, 2008) and Like Birds in the Rain (Sam’s Dot, 2007). She has won three Bram Stoker Awards® for Superior Work in Poetry. Her poems appear in Qualia Nous (Written Backwards), The Dark Phantastique (Jasunni Productions) and more poems will appear in Chiral Mad (Written Backwards) anthology and the HWA/Simon & Schuster Y/A collection, 2015. margesimon.com

F.J. Bergmann won the Rhysling Award for the Short Poem in 2008 and is pleased to now have the complete set. She edits Star*Line and is the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change and poetry editor at Dark Renaissance Books.

Ruth Berman’s work has appeared in many sf/fantasy, general, and literary magazines and anthologies. Her novel, Bradamant’s Quest, was published by FTL Publications of Minnesota. She was one of the contributors to Lady Poetesses from Hell (Bag Person Press Collective, Minneapolis). Her translation of two fairy tales by 18th-century writer Louise Cavelier Levesque, “The Prince of the Aquamarines” & “The Invisible Prince,” was published by Aqueduct Press of Seattle. She is a former winner of the Rhysling and Dwarf Stars awards.

Megan Arkenberg lives and writes in California. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Aghast, Lightspeed, Nightmare Magazine, Daughters of Frankenstein and Start a Revolution. She is the editor of the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance and nonfiction editor for Queers Destroy Horror!, a special issue of Nightmare coming out this November. Her poem "The Curator Speaks in the Department of Dead Languages" won the Rhysling Award in 2012, and "Sister Philomela Heard the Voices of Angels" placed third in 2013.

Bryan D. Dietrich is the author of seven books of poems. He is also co-editor of an anthology of superhero poetry and editor of the journal Archaeopteryx. Bryan has published poems in Asimov's, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, The New Yorker, Poetry, Harvard Review, Yale Review, and many other journals. He has won an Asimov's Readers Choice Award, The Paris Review Prize, a “Discovery”/The Nation Award, a Writers at Work Fellowship, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer. Professor of English at Newman University, Bryan lives in Wichita, Kansas with his wife, Gina, and their son, Nick.

Francesca Forrest has lived in the United States, England, and Japan and used to boast about having given birth to children on three continents. If she’d started earlier, she might have tried for births on the rest. Currently she works as a copy editor, spending as much of her free time writing as possible. She’s had short stories and poems published both online and in print, along with one novel, Pen Pal. She also volunteers as a tutor in a medium-security jail and has helped with a program to make children’s books available in the various mother tongues spoken in Timor-Leste. She loves knowing which plants in a landscape are edible and the folk names of wildflowers.

Joshua Gage is an ornery curmudgeon from Cleveland, His first full-length collection, breaths, is available from VanZeno Press. Intrinsic Night, a collaborative project he wrote with J. E. Stanley, was published by Sam’s Dot Publishing. His most recent collection, Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse, is available on Poet’s Haven Press. He is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Naropa University. He has a penchant for Pendleton shirts, rye whiskey and any poem strong enough to yank the breath out of his lungs. He stomps around Cleveland in a purple bathrobe where he hosts the monthly Deep Cleveland Poetry hour and enjoys the beer at Fat Heads.

John Philip Johnson would be an astronaut if he could. He has had poems or stories published in such places as Rattle, Mythic Delirium, Apex, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, Ted Kooser's newspaper column, and also at the Poetry Foundation. He has an Elgin-nominated comic book of graphic poetry, Stairs Appear in a Hole Outside of Town, available at graphicpoetrypress.bigcartel.com. He would go to Mars if he could. His website: johnphilipjohnson.com.

David Clink is a poet, poker player, and punster. His poem, “A sea monster tells his story” won the 2013 Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song. David finished second in the Asimov’s Readers’ Awards—Poetry Category, 2007, for his poem, “Copyright Notice 2525.” He placed third in the 2014 Dwarf Stars competition. His poetry has appeared in Analog five times, and Asimov’s three times. He has two collections published by Tightrope Books: Eating Fruit Out of Season (2008) and Monster (2010). His third collection, Crouching Yak, Hidden Emu, was published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box in 2012. In 2014 Piquant Press launched David’s speculative poetry chapbook If the World were to Stop Spinning.

All Nominated Poems

68 members voted on 59 short poems and 40 long poems from 51 publications.

Short Poems

  • “Worlds Apart” • Mary Alexandra Agner • Polu Texni, March
  • “Main Sequence” • Saira Ali • Mythic Delirium, July
  • “The Delusion of Trees” • David Barber • Eye to the Telescope 14
  • “Pauli Neutrino Telescope, Antarctica, July 14, 2033” • David Barber • Star*Line 37.2
  • “Lost” • F.J. Bergmann • Eye to the Telescope 14
  • “Science Fiction (with apologies to Marianne Moore’s “Poetry”)” • Ruth Berman • Dreams and Nightmares 98
  • “Maybe Waldo Had Syphilis” • Matt Betts • Tigershark 5
  • “The Cuckoo’s Bride” • Robert Borski • Dreams and Nightmares 97
  • “Septuagenarian Flashback” • Bruce Boston • Silver Blade 24
  • “There Are Signs of Faerie Everywhere” • G. Sutton Breiding • facebook.com/gsuttonbreiding 7/5/14
  • “Stalking a Wizard” • Michael Canfield • The Pedestal Magazine 74
  • “Dragon to Centauri” • Beth Cato • Space & Time Magazine 121
  • “A Work in Progress” • G.O. Clark • Asimov's Science Fiction, June
  • “Short Forms” • David Clink • Asimov's Science Fiction, September
  • “After hours at the op shop” • P.S. Cottier • Eureka Street 24:10
  • “Keziah (Nahab) Mason” • Cardinal Cox • Codex Lilith (pamphlet)
  • “Neuroanatomy Practical” • Tim Craven • Moon City Review 2014
  • “I Imagine My Mother’s Death” • Bryan D. Dietrich • The Pedestal Magazine 74
  • “Stephen Hawking” • Bryan D. Dietrich • The Cresset LXXIX:2
  • “Beware of the Dog” • James S. Dorr • Grievous Angel, 9/11/14
  • “A Universe” • Timons Esaias • Polu Texni, May
  • “The Peal Divers” • Francesca Forrest • Strange Horizons, 3/17/14
  • “Extinction” • Joshua Gage • Star*Line 37.3
  • “Elephants in the Alley” • Terry A. Garey • Cascadia Subduction Zone 3:3
  • “It's a Universal Picture” • Gwynne Garfinkle • Mythic Delirium 1.1
  • “Field Notes” • Lola Haskins • Analog, November
  • “Before You Were a Vampire” • irving • Star*Line 37.3
  • “After the Changeling Incantation” • John Philip Johnson • Strange Horizons, 2/3/14
  • “After ‘Dark Matter’” • Herb Kauderer • The Book of Answers (Written Image)
  • “After ‘Signs You're in Trouble’” • Herb Kauderer • The Book of Answers (Written Image)
  • “Heere ther be Gods” • David Kopaska-Merkel • Star*Line 37.4
  • “Attic Dust” •  Sandi Leibowitz • Silver Blade 21
  • “Dualities” • Rose Lemberg • Mythic Delirium, October
  • “Landwork” • Rose Lemberg • Goblin Fruit, Spring
  • “Cinderella’s Breast” • Sandra Lindow • Archaeopteryx: The Newman Journal of Ideas 2
  • “daydreaming” • Lauren McBride • Star*Line 37.3
  • “Common Language” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • 2014 SFPA Poetry Contest
  • “The Time of Last Scattering” • Lynette Mejía • Star*Line 37.1
  • “Marvel Word Problems” • P. Andrew Miller • Drawn to Marvel, eds. Marta Ferguson & Bryan Dietrich (Minor Arcana Press)
  • “Odyssey” • Kim L. Neidigh • Outposts of Beyond, July
  • “Queen of Cups” • Adrienne J. Odasso • inkscrawl 7
  • “Morning Sickness” • Aimee Ogden • Asimov's Science Fiction, Oct/Nov
  • “At the Dark Matter Zoo” • Simon Petrie • The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, eds. P.S. Cottier & Tim Jones (Interactive Press)
  • “The Devil Riding Your Back” • Gabby Reed • Liminality 1
  • “Dark Energized” • Ann K. Schwader • Star*Line 37.3
  • “Leap” • Grace Seybold • Star*Line 37.1
  • “Shutdown” • Marge Simon • Qualia Nous, ed. Michael Bailey (Written Backwards)
  • “The Rat Queen” • Noel Sloboda • Pembroke Magazine 46
  • “Revelation” •  Robin Spriggs • The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom (Anomalous Books)
  • “Intimate Universes” • Jason Sturner • Tales of the Talisman 10:1
  • “A Bulgakov Headache” • Sonya Taaffe • Stone Telling 10
  • “You Are Here” • Bogi Takács • Strange Horizons, 11/24/14
  • “Sonnet 65,000,000 BC” • Mary Turzillo • Star*Line 37.1
  • “Dark Matter Dark Mind” • Peter C. Venable • Parody 3:1
  • “The Old Time Traveler's Song” • William John Watkins • Asimov's Science Fiction, Jan
  • “Cthulhu partners” • Greer Woodward • Halloween Haiku II, ed. Lester Smith (Popcorn Press)
  • “Dare I Keep the Body” • Stephanie Wytovich • Mourning Jewelry (Raw Dog Screaming)
  • “Eventually, You Become Immune” • Stephanie Wytovich • Jamais Vu 1
  • “Remembering Jean-Paul Sartre” • Jeffrey Zable • Chrome Baby, Bairn 27

Long Poems

  • “Nothing Writes to Disk” • Kythryne Aisling • Stone Telling 11
  • “Dearly Beloved” • Mike Allen • Postscripts to Darkness 5
  • “Six Things the Owl Said” • Megan Arkenberg • Goblin Fruit, Spring
  • “100 Reasons to Have Sex with an Alien” • F.J. Bergmann • 2014 SFPA Poetry Contest
  • “Sea Monster Objects to Term ‘Kaiju’” • Robert Borski • Dreams and Nightmares 99
  • “Death of the Crossing Guard” • Bruce Boston •  Jamais Vu 1
  • “Una Canción de Keys” • Lisa Bradley • Strange Horizons, 2/24/14
  • “Rule 44” • Robert Payne Cabeen • Fearworms: Selected Poems (Fanboy Comics)
  • “The Perfect Library” • David Clink • If the World Were to Stop Spinning (Piquant Press)
  • “And I'll Dance With You Yet, My Darling” • C.S.E. Cooney • Stone Telling 10
  • “Drawn to Marvel” • Bryan D. Dietrich • Drawn to Marvel, eds. Marta Ferguson & Bryan Dietrich (Minor Arcana Press)
  • “Spelling ‘For Worse’” • Peg Duthie • Goblin Fruit, Winter
  • “Star Song” • Kendall Evans • Analog, July/August
  • “House of Jaguar” • Serena Fusek • Star*Line 37.4
  • “Row Your Boat Ashore” • Adele Gardner • Songs of Eretz Poetry E-zine 2:2
  • “Hollow Beats the Night” • Delbert R. Gardner • Songs of Eretz Poetry E-zine 2:1
  • “The Alchemy” • Neile Graham • Goblin Fruit, Winter
  • “Roman Shade” • April Grant • Strange Horizons, 1/27/14
  • “Mining Planet” • John Grey • Chrome Baby, Bairn 19
  • “Saline to Atlantis” • Herb Kauderer • The Book of Answers (Written Image)
  • “Words Not Red” • Herb Kauderer • The Book of Answers (Written Image)
  • “Said Rapunzel to the Wolf” • Sally Rosen Kindred • Goblin Fruit, Winter
  • “Encounter While Waiting for Transport” • David C. Kopaska-Merkel & W. Gregory Stewart • New Myths 26
  • “Numbers” • Mary Soon Lee • Star*Line 37.2
  • “The Matter of the Horses” • Mary Soon Lee • Ideomancer 13:4
  • “The Virgin and the Unicorn” • Mary Soon Lee • Star*Line 37.1
  • “Braiding” • Sandi Leibowitz • Niteblade, March
  • “The Santa Claus Triptych” • Sandra J. Lindow • Star*Line 37.1
  • “Butterfly Effect” • John C. Mannone • Tupelo Press 30/30 project
  • “The Man Who Saw the World” • Alessandro Manzetti • Venus Intervention (Kipple Officina Libraria)
  • “A Summoning of Monsters” • Jack Hollis Marr • Liminality 1
  • “Concerning the Curious Burial Customs of the Witches of Megaira” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Interfictions 4
  • “Demands” • Mari Ness • Goblin Fruit, Fall
  • “The Memory-Thief” • Adrienne J. Odasso & Dominik Parisien • Ideomancer 13:2
  • “Ode to Yon Glizan Orbs, or No?” • Terrie Leigh Relf • Tales of the Talisman 9:4
  • “The Swooning” • Mark Rich • The Cascadia Subduction Zone 4:4
  • “Principles of Entropy” • Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg • Abyss & Apex, January
  • “Eolian Conscientia” • Marge Simon & Mary Turzillo • Sweet Poison (Dark Renaissance Press)
  • “Let the Fire Decide” • Sarah Wright • Tales of the Talisman 9:3
  • “Conservation of Energy” • Alvaro Zinos-Amaro • Apex Magazine, August

Nominations per Publication

Number of NominationsPublication Name
1Abyss & Apex
2Analog
1Apex Magazine
1Archaeopteryx: The Newman Journal of Ideas
4Asimov’s Science Fiction
4The Book of Answers (Written Image)
2Cascadia Subduction Zone
2Chrome Baby
1Codex Lilith (pamphlet)
1The Cresset
2Drawn to Marvel (Minor Arcana Press)
3Dreams & Nightmares
1Eureka Street
2Eye to the Telescope
1facebook.com/gsuttonbreiding
1Fearworms (fanboy Comics)
6Goblin Fruit
1Grievous Angel
1Halloween Haiku II (Popcorn Press)
2Ideomancer
1If the World Were to Stop Spinning (Piquant Press)
1inkscrawl
1Interfictions
2Jamais Vu
2Liminality
1Moon City Review
1Mourning Jewelry (Raw Dog Screaming)
3Mythic Delirium
1New Myths
1Niteblade
1Outposts of Beyond
1Parody
2The Pedestal Magazine
1Pembroke Magazine
2Polu Texni
1Postscripts to Darkness
1Qualia Nous (Written Backwards)
2SFPA Poetry Contest
2Silver Blade
2Songs of Eretz
1Space & Time
13Star*Line
1The Stars Like Sand (Interactive Press)
3Stone Telling
5Strange Horizons
1Sweet Poison (Dark Renaissance Press)
3Tales of the Talisman
1Tigershark
1Tupelo Press 30/30 project
1The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom (Anomalous Books)
1Venus Intervention (Kipple Officina Libraria)
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