Anthology Information
Editor and Rhysling Chair:
Linda D. Addison
Book Design: F.J. Bergmann
Cover Image: Dark Mermaid
by Rowena Morrill
Publisher: Science Fiction Poetry Association
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All Award Winners
Short Poem Category
First Place: “Advice to a Six-Year-Old” • Mary Soon Lee • Star*Line 40.2
Second Place: “How to Grieve: A Primer for Witches” • Sara Cleto • Mythic Delirium, May
Third Place: “Gramarye” • F. J. Bergmann • Polu Texni 12/26/17
Long Poem Category
First Place:
Second Place: “For Preserves” • Cassandra Rose Clarke • Star*Line 40.4
Third Place: “Alternate Genders” • Mary Soon Lee • Mithila Review 9
Chair and Winner Biographies
Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but now lives in Pittsburgh. She has had over three hundred poems published, in places ranging from American Scholar, to Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Not Like This” is part of The Sign of the Dragon, her epic fantasy told in poems. The first part of King Xau’s story, Crowned: The Sign of the Dragon, Book 1, won the 2016 Elgin Award. A dozen poems from the epic may be read at thesignofthedragon.com
Sara Cleto haunts the borders between folklore and literature in her poetry, fiction, and scholarship. She completed her PhD in English and Folklore at the Ohio State University in 2018, and she is a co-founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic where she teaches courses on fairy tales, creative writing, mythic adaptation, and more. Her poetry and fiction can be found in Uncanny Magazine, Faerie Magazine, Liminality, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, and others.
Cassandra Rose Clarke’s work has placed in the Rhysling Awards and been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, the Pushcart Prize, and YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults. She grew up in south Texas and currently lives in Houston, where she writes and serves as the associate director for Writespace, a literary arts nonprofit. She holds an M.A. in creative writing from The University of Texas at Austin, and in 2010 she attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. Her latest novel is Halo: Battle Born, forthcoming from Scholastic.
F.J. Bergmann won the Rhysling Award for the Short Poem in 2008 and the Long Poem in 2015. She is pleased to mention that Star*Line published this year's winning short poem under her (former) editorship. She is the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change and the managing editor of MadHat Press. Her specialty is imagining tragedies on or near exoplanets.
All Nominated Poems
93 members voted on 87 short poems and 63 long poems from 74 publications.
Short Poems
- “Advice to a Six-Year-Old” • Mary Soon Lee • Star*Line 40.2
- “After Midnight” • David Clink • Compostela: Tesseracts Twenty eds. Spider Robinson & James Alan Gardner (Edge, 2017)
- “The Alchemy of Arsenic” • Neile Graham • Liminality 13
- “All-Purpose Spell for Banishment” • Lesley Wheeler • Salamander 45
- “An Announcement” • Sara Cleto & Brittany Warman • Uncanny 19
- “Apologies from the Moon” • Lynne Sargent • Wild Musette: The Sin Eater
- “Astro-Archaeologist’s Log” • Vince Gotera • The Poet’s Haven Digest: Strange Land
- “The Astronaut Nightmare” • Michael H. Hanson • When the Night Owl Screams (MoonDream Press, 2017)
- “Astronomers” • Ace G. Pilkington • The Horror Zine, November
- “Baalberith” • Robert Beveridge • Priestess & Hierophant 2
- “Baba Yaga: Her Almost Origin Story” • Minadora Macheret • Bramble & Thorn, ed. Nicci Mechler (Porkbelly Press)
- “Beware” • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Songs of Eretz Poetry Review 22/9/17
- “Birth, Place” • Brandon O’Brien • Uncanny 18
- “Black Star” • Adam Bolivar • The Lay of Old Hex (Hippocampus Press)
- “Circe’s Guests” • Amelia Gorman • Liminality 12
- “Cosmovore Searches the Animal Shelter” • Kristi Carter • Cosmovore (Aqueduct Press)
- “Dark Solstice Cold and Deathly” • Richard L. Tierney • Spectral Realms 6
- “The Dead Boy Teaches Me About Godzilla” • Lana Hechtman Ayers • Escape into Life
- “Dead Bride Philosophy” • Sara Tantlinger • Space & Time 128
- “The Dead Languages of the Wind” • David Clink • Compostela: Tesseracts Twenty eds. Spider Robinson & James Alan Gardner (Edge, 2017)
- “Dear Shotgun City” • Holly Lyn Walrath • Eye to the Telescope 25
- “The Devil in Boston” • A. J. Odasso • Barking Sycamores 12
- “early years of transdimensional travel” • John Reinhart • New Myths 38
- “Egress” • Marge Simon • Star*Line 40.4
- “The Empty House” • A. J. Locke • Sycorax’s Daughters, eds. Kinitra Brooks, Linda D. Addison & Susana Morris (Cedar Grove Publishing)
- “End-Times Tables” • Margarita Tenser • Star*Line 40.1
- “Endeavour” • G. O. Clark • Asimov’s SF, May/June
- “Enthusiasts of Ruin” • Margaret Wack • Liminality 14
- “first date” • David F. Shultz • The Literary Hatchet 18
- “Flowers for Asimov” • William Shaw • Star*Line 40.4
- “Giger’s Children” • Saba Syed Razvi • Machine Dreams 1
- “Goodnight” • David F. Shultz • Polar Borealis Magazine 4
- “Gramarye” • F. J. Bergmann • Polu Texni 12/26/17
- “Grand Guignol” • G. O. Clark • Longshot Island 12/19/17
- “Guttersnipe” • WC Roberts • Chrome Baby 63
- “How to Grieve: A Primer for Witches” • Sara Cleto • Mythic Delirium, May
- “Hubble’s Constant” • Marian D. Moore • Asimov’s SF, January/February
- “In the Business of Things That Don't Earn You Much” • Ziad Gadou • Strange Horizons, Arab League community and diaspora special issue
- “late to work” • Julie Bloss Kelsey • Jersey Devil Press 91
- “The Lovers and the Labyrinth” • Sara Cleto • Faerie Magazine 41
- “Lycium Barbarum” • PS Cottier • Umbel & Panicle 5
- “March Madness” • Francis W. Alexander • Night to Dawn, April
- “Medusa in Her Mirror” • Hillary Lyon • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
- “Messiaen Among The Dinosaurs” • Tim Jones • takahē 89
- “Midwest Wonder Expo” • Amelia Gorman • Star*Line 40.4
- “The Mushroom Siren” K. A. Opperman • The Audient Void 4
- “The Mutant Rat” • K. V. Volney • krystalvolneyfanclub.blogspot.com
- “My Little Green Secret” • Clay F. Johnson • Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase 4
- “My Response to Your Mayday Call” • David Clink & Herb Kauderer • Dreams and Nightmares 105
- “A Net to Snare a Unicorn” • Beth Cato • Mythic Delirium, January
- “O Terrible Bird” • Sandra Kasturi • Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow (Pegasus Books)
- “One More Attempt at Disaster Preparedness” • Jeannine Hall Gailey • American Poetry Journal
- “Other People’s Tragedies” • Jennifer Crow • Mythic Delirium, August
- “Pine Song, Robin Song, Star Song” • Holly Lyn Walrath • Liminality 11
- “Pleiades”• Jenny Blackford • The Loyalty of Chickens, Pitt Street Poetry
- “Poisoned Apple” • Ann Thornfield-Long • Abyss & Apex, March
- “Quantum Socks” • R. Gene Turchin • Eye to the Telescope 25
- “Radiant Things” • A. J. Odasso • Noble Dissent (ed. Rebecca Jane Bilkau, Beautiful Dragons Press)
- “reanimated …” • Susan Burch • Scifaikuest, print
- “Save Our Souls” • Karen Bovenmyer • Silver Blade 33
- “scent of blackened” • Greer Woodward • Star*Line 40.1
- “The Scratch inside Your Chest” • Layla Al-Bedawi • Strange Horizons 10/30/17
- “Scorpio” • Jo Walton • Patreon 11/23/17
- “Sea Legs” • Milo Gallagher • NonBinary Review 14
- “Secret Identities” • Davian Aw • Strange Horizons 2/6/17
- “Shadowfolk” • John Philip Johnson • Devilfish Review 19
- “She traveled back in time” • Terrie Leigh Relf • Outposts of Beyond, April
- “Small Town Witches” • Kate Pentecost • Liminality 13
- “Some Things Never Change” • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 40.1
- “Song of a Changeling” • Adele Gardner • Balticon 51: The BSFAN, May
- “Starlight” • Christina Sng • Space & Time 129
- “A Streetcar Named Happily Ever After” • B. J. Lee • Illumen, Autumn
- “Supper with the Sphinx” • Carolyn Clink • Canadian Ginger (ed. Kim Clark & Dawn Marie Kresan, Oolichan Books, 2017)
- “Surreal Bucket List #3” • Bruce Boston • Mithila Review 9
- “Sycorax’s Daughters Unveiled” • Linda Addison • Sycorax’s Daughters, eds. Kinitra Brooks, Linda D. Addison & Susana Morris (Cedar Grove Publishing)
- “Syncing Minefields” • Karen Bovenmyer • Strange Horizons 2/20/17
- “Table of Contents from a Lost Book of Divination” • Dean Kostos • Star*Line 40.2
- “The Talking River” • John W. Sexton • Star*Line 40.2
- “Titan’s Magic Islands: Transient Features in the Hydrocarbon Seas” • Geoffrey A. Landis • Asimov’s Science Fiction, July/August
- “Vaginoplasticine” • Alison Rumfitt • Star*Line 40.4
- “Vampirette” • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Star*Line 40.4
- “Villain L” • Azriel Johnson • The Poet's Haven Digest: The Distance Between Insanity and Genius
- “Vul Ravin” • D. L. Myers • Spectral Realms 6
- “Wayfaring King” • Beth Cato • Star*Line 40.4
- “When the Aliens Come to Tea” • Mary A. Turzillo • The Poet’s Haven Digest: Strange Land
- “The Witch Woman” • Alexandra Seidel • Polu Texni 7/17/17
- “Yellow Spiders” • John C. Mannone • Altered Reality Magazine 4/28/17
Long Poems
- “Alternate Genders” • Mary Soon Lee • Mithila Review 9
- “The Android Who Gave Herself Away” Rohinton Daruwala • Eye to the Telescope 23
- “Apocalyptic Mass” • Alessandro Manzetti • No Mercy (Crystal Lake Publications)
- “Atop the Crystal Moon” • Ashley Dioses • Diary of a Sorceress (Hippocampus Press)
- “The Ballad of the de la Poers” • Adam Bolivar • Spectral Realms 7
- “Castaway” • John C. Mannone • Anak Sastra 28
- “Chrysopoeia & Isagoge” • Saba Syed Razvi • Beside the Muezzin's Call & Beyond the Harem’s Veil (Finishing Line Press)
- “A Cleaner Times Square” • Vanessa Kittle• Chrome Baby 61
- “Commentary Track” • Troy Jollimore • The Plume Anthology of Poetry 5 ed. Daniel Lawless (Plume Editions)
- “Dab3 (Mount Hermon, 1998)” • Sara Saab • Strange Horizons 10/30/17
- “Daunted” • Mary Soon Lee • Dreams and Nightmares 105
- “Don't Forget the Tinderbox” • Jennifer Lynn Krohn • NonBinary Review 14
- “A Dream of Milk and Blood” • Alessandro Manzetti • No Mercy (Crystal Lake Publications)
- “The Drum Star (Orion’s Ghost)” • Ryu Ando • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive Special
- “The First Battle of the Puffer War” • Herb Kauderer • Outposts of Beyond, July
- “For Preserves” • Cassandra Rose Clarke • Star*Line 40.4
- “Four Moons” • John Philip Johnson • Mithila Review 9
- “Frida’s Monsters” • Alessandro Manzetti • No Mercy (Crystal Lake Publications)
- “Ghosts of 1816” • Clay F. Johnson • Spectral Realms 6
- “The Hawthorn Muses” • Shannon Connor Winward • Timeless Tales 8
- “Hot” • Cislyn Smith • Strange Horizons 5/29/17
- “The Huntsman” • Lora Gray • Liminal Stories 4
- “In the Labyrinth” • Allan Rozinski • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice
- “Instructions for Astronauts” • Michael Janairo • Mithila Review 8
- “Just Rosie” • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Eye to the Telescope 23
- “Kindred Spirit” • F. J. Bergmann • Dreams and Nightmares 106
- “Let Me In” • Tonya Liburd • Alligators in the Sewers (Unnerving Magazine chapbook)
- “Little Red” • Christina Sng • Polu Texni 9/4/17
- “Little Red: Morning” • Sally Rosen Kindred • Bramble & Thorn, ed. Nicci Mechler (Porkbelly Press)
- “Looking Back to the Stars” • Vince Gotera • Altered Reality Magazine, October
- “Lotus Moon” • Mary Soon Lee • Mythic Delirium 4.2
- “Maintenance Call” • Ken Poyner • Abyss & Apex 61
- “Masques and Mayhem” • Jennifer Crow • Mythic Delirium, September
- “Moonlight in the Playground” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 6
- “O Ippos” • Mari Ness • Through Immortal Shadows Singing (Papaveria Press)
- “On a Dreamland's Moon” • Ashley Dioses • Black Wings VI (PS Publishing)
- “Opposition Night” • Christina M. Rau • Liberating the Astronauts (Aqueduct Press)
- “The Patron Saint of Lost Causes” • Chris Castro-Rappl • Abyss & Apex, September
- “Pre-Raphaelite Girls” • Delbert R. Gardner & Adele Gardner • Buckshot Magazine, 7/12/17
- “Protestations Against the Idea of Anglicization” • Cassandra Khaw • Uncanny 19
- “Quietly, on the way to Mars” • Bronwyn Lovell • Cordite Poetry Review, September
- “The Rain that Falls in the Mutant Rain Forest” • Bruce Boston • Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest (Crystal Lake Publications)
- “Rapunzel and Medusa” • Colleen Anderson • Polu Texni 9/25/17
- “The Raven’s Hallowe’en” • Shannon Connor Winward • Wild Musette, 10/26/18
- “Romance of Possible Contrasts” • Alison Rumfitt • Strange Horizons, 12/18/17
- “The Seal Wife” • Signe Pike• Faerie Magazine 38
- “The Secret Life of a Toaster” • Mary Soon Lee • Polu Texni 10/2/17
- “Shards of a Fractured Soul” • Deborah L. Davitt • The Poet’s Haven Digest: Strange Land
- “She Dreams of Tigers, or Remembers” • Jennifer D’Aubergny • The Poet's Haven Digest: The Distance Between Insanity and Genius
- “The Simple Poem” • Abhishek Sengupta • Liminality 12
- “Signs That the World Might Be Ending” • E. E. King • NonBinary Review 13
- “Size 15W Should Do It (after George Orwell” • Tyree Campbell • A Danger to Self and Others (Alban Lake)
- “Sons of Fire and Clay” • Jesse Parent• The Poet's Haven Digest: The Distance Between Insanity and Genius
- “Starskin, Sealskin” • Shveta Thakrar & Sara Cleto • Uncanny 17
- “The Story of Shen Dho, A Pirate in the Red Flag Fleet, Who Serves Ching Shih Devotedly for Many Years” • Kendall Evans • Illumen, Autumn
- “tha may ask thee sen/At the Finish” • Paul Brookes • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
- “The Trajectory of Culture” • David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Kendall Evans • Polu Texni 5/15/17
- “The Tree Builder” • Christina Loraine • Eye to the Telescope 25
- “Waking” • Sara Cleto & Brittany Warman • Liminality 10
- “What Neighbors Do” • Herb Kauderer • 49th Parallels, ed. Hayden Trenholm (Bundoran Press)
- “Whispers & Lies” • Deborah Elizabeth Whaley • Sycorax’s Daughters, eds. Kinitra Brooks, Linda D. Addison & Susana Morris (Cedar Grove Publishing)
- “The Woman in the Feathered Mask” • K. A. Opperman • Skelos 3
Nominations per Publication
| Number of Nominations | Publication Name |
|---|---|
| 1 | 49th Parallels (Bundoran Press) |
| 3 | Abyss & Apex |
| 1 | Alligators in the Sewers (Unnerving Magazine chapbook) |
| 2 | Altered Reality Magazine |
| 1 | American Poetry Journal |
| 1 | Anak Sastra |
| 3 | Asimov’s Science Fiction |
| 1 | The Audient Void |
| 1 | Balticon 51: The BSFAN |
| 1 | Barking Sycamores |
| 1 | Beside the Muezzin's Call & Beyond the Harem’s Veil (Finishing Line Press) |
| 1 | Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow (Pegasus Books) |
| 1 | Black Wings VI (PS Publishing) |
| 1 | Brainpickings |
| 2 | Bramble & Thorn (Porkbelly Press) |
| 1 | Buckshot Magazine |
| 1 | Canadian Ginger (Oolichan Press) |
| 2 | Chrome Baby |
| 2 | Compostela: Tesseracts Twenty eds. Spider Robinson & James Alan Gardner (Edge) |
| 1 | Cordite Poetry Review |
| 1 | Cosmovore (Aqueduct Press) |
| 1 | A Danger to Self and Others (Alban Lake) |
| 1 | Devilfish Review |
| 1 | Diary of a Sorceress (Hippocampus Press) |
| 3 | Dreams and Nightmares |
| 1 | Escape into Life |
| 3 | Eternal Haunted Summer |
| 5 | Eye to the Telescope |
| 2 | Faerie Magazine |
| 1 | The Horror Zine |
| 1 | Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase |
| 2 | Illumen |
| 1 | Jersey Devil Press |
| 1 | krystalvolneyfanclub.blogspot.com |
| 1 | The Lay of Old Hex (Hippocampus Press) |
| 1 | Liberating the Astronauts (Aqueduct Press) |
| 1 | Liminal Stories |
| 7 | Liminality |
| 1 | The Literary Hatchet |
| 1 | Longshot Island |
| 1 | The Loyalty of Chickens (Pitt Street Poetry) |
| 1 | Machine Dreams |
| 4 | Mithila Review |
| 5 | Mythic Delirium |
| 1 | New Myths |
| 1 | Night to Dawn |
| 3 | No Mercy (Crystal Lake Publications) |
| 3 | NonBinary Review |
| 1 | Noble Dissent (Beautiful Dragons Press) |
| 2 | Outposts of Beyond |
| 1 | Patreon |
| 1 | The Plume Anthology of Poetry 5 ed. Daniel Lawless (Plume Editions) |
| 6 | The Poet’s Haven Digest |
| 1 | Polar Borealis Magazine |
| 6 | Polu Texni |
| 1 | Priestess & Hierophant |
| 1 | Salamander |
| 1 | Scifaikuest |
| 1 | Silver Blade |
| 1 | Skelos |
| 1 | Songs of Eretz Poetry Review |
| 2 | Space & Time |
| 5 | Spectral Realms |
| 12 | Star*Line |
| 7 | Strange Horizons |
| 3 | Sycorax’s Daughters, eds. Kinitra Brooks, Linda D. Addison & Susana Morris (Cedar Grove Publishing) |
| 1 | takahē |
| 1 | Through Immortal Shadows Singing (Papaveria Press) |
| 1 | Timeless Tales |
| 1 | Umbel & Panicle |
| 4 | Uncanny |
| 1 | Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest (Crystal Lake Publications) |
| 1 | When the Night Owl Screams (MoonDream Press) |
| 2 | Wild Musette |