Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore by James S. Dorr
  • Persephone, Trapped by Adrienne J. Odasso
  • Their Quantum Toy by Jenny Blackford

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: Novelty

Welcome to the new editorial régime at Star*Line! Just to clarify: for the first two issues of 2012 (i.e., this one and 35.2), Marge Simon will still be the titular Poetry Editor, since the poetry for those issues had already been selected by her. I will begin considering poetry for issue 35.3 onward as of January 1, 2012. Unless the torrent of submissions makes this policy unfeasible, I will be reading for Star*Line year-round. Should issues begin to fill too far in advance, standards will be raised appropriately.

Star*Line is open to any poets writing in the spec genres, not just SFPA members. Not only that, but it will not exclude those poets who do not consider themselves primarily speculative poets. To that end, I will post calls for submissions at non-sf venues unless that practice becomes impractical (see “torrent” and “unfeasible,” above). While Anglophone, SFPA encompasses the planet; we will retain English style variations (where practical) with respect to the poet’s nationality, and hope to receive translations (with permissions) of SFnal poetry from other languages into English.

The essence of an editor’s job (aside from the mundane concerns of layout, printing, distribution, and trying to compose an impersonal rejection slip that comforts the timid and insecure, encourages the promising, and squelches the blatantly inappropriate [often, all are required simultaneously]) is to select material according to imposed criteria—within the limitations of the publication’s stated mission, of course. While I have no intention of making apologies for my editorial choices, I will be happy to explain, if asked, what rationale lies behind selections (bottom line, always, is “personal taste”).

Poems that depend on knowledge of esoteric information (for instance, the poet’s personal history) often fail: it can be easy to miss literary and cultural references that make all the difference—when an editor called to tell me that a poem of mine was the runner-up for a major award (major award: $2K; runner-up: $0), he said, “Yeah, the folks who knew [the poet whose work it parodied] thought it was hilarious, and the others thought it was a really bad poem.” I think of the bits that depend upon obscure facts or arcane references as “Easter eggs” (equivalent to the same term in software development); these can be fun for the clued-in reader, but should not be the poem’s entire purpose.

I have a vanishingly small interest in submitters’ publication credits. Past issues of Star*Line have not included contributor’s bios, and I intend to maintain that practice, even though I suspect that it arose because SFPA was at one time a very small and incestuous community—and I would like to see it become less incestuous and less small. (For the insatiably curious, I hear there are some lovely search engines out there.…) I have even less interest in poems that require “explanation” in their cover letters.

One change I have implemented is to make Star*Line and SFPA’s other publications also available as .pdfs, for those who prefer e-literature, desire quick gratification, or have unreliable mail service. Another is to promote subscriptions to libraries, schools, and those who are not interested in SFPA membership but do like to read speculative poetry (we call these people “consumers,” and they should be encouraged). To that end, it is important to make our publications transparent and credible to readers from outside SFPA.

It also behooves us to refrain from internecine warfare elsewhere in the public arena, to say nothing of personally motivated vilification of individuals via attacks on their poetry. Neither private ideology nor lack of literary stature can justify this behavior. I welcome critical discussion of individual poems and editorial policy, but I hope that we can take it as a given that poems are offered, and accepted, for publication without being motivated by any other ideological agenda than wanting to publish the best speculative poetry being written today.

Let me leave you with a description of what effect that poetry should have:

And soon, the things we never thought
        would happen
start to happen: the solid fences
of reality begin to soften
crumbling into fables and romances—
and we turn away from where we’ve been
to a new place, where light is pouring in.

from “The Geniuses Among Us”
by Marilyn L. Taylor

See you next ish,

—F.J. Bergmann, Star*Line Editor

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Editor's Choice Poems

"No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore," by James S. Dorr

Well, first off the woods were cut down last year
for land to build the new subdivision,
and while they are nice houses, asphalt and sidewalks
are tough on bare feet, whether wolf-formed or human,
and while one can cut through yards, fences and pools
not to mention rosebushes make such ruses dangerous.
Then there are dogs, whose barking and racket
tend to ruin ambience,
not to mention that some slip their leashes,
but killing them even if forced to seems futile—
they die too easily which ruins the sport of it—
and either way they tend to frighten off game.
Worst though is the walk back, the moon having set,
paunch-bellied and middle-aged,
clothes doffed of course prior to the transformation,
now skulking through gauntlets of giggling schoolchildren
awaiting buses, braving the glares of late commuters,
only to return to wives back home seething
in their own embarrassment.

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"Persephone, Trapped," by Adrienne J. Odasso

It’ll be a good deal for you, they said, feigning pity
as they stamped the official-looking document
without my consent. You would think that goddess’s rights
would have meant something here, but not lately.

Even now, I fail to grasp why this is any different:
I’ve not missed inhabiting a mortal body, not one bit.

This model easily breaks. It feels imaginary pain
at the slightest written provocation. It weeps
to hear strains so many pale shades short
of Orpheus’s lyre. It takes no noticeable gain
from fleshly pleasures, only burns when poetry
is sunk like an axe-blade in its veins.

There’s sweetness, though, that’s unexpected—
the fiery shiver in her quiet eyes when he comes
in the door, the fervent longing to touch him
even though she doesn’t. She waits for him to make
the first move, and her welcome is as cool
as grape-skin ready to yield. Her grandfather’s garden
was Eden, and she struggles to express the taste
of sugar-pears in one soft, restrained brush
of her lips. She remembers pain yet undetected.

And then there are my eyes, the fractured yielding
of the mirror as I numbly realize that their color
has changed. Where once they were unfaltering grey,
these irises feather and splinter with shades
of sheer yearning. Blue, silver. Fey-wild burning
like a storm-tossed, wreck-riddled sea. Still hungry.

No different, I tell them.

Not one bit.

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"Their Quantum Toy," by Jenny Blackford

Gravity is stern as death,
implacable.
It tears us from the floating dark
inside the womb
and drags us through the heavy world
down to the grave.
No human born escapes its bonds.
But cats!
The silly beasts tempt death to find
how many lives
they really have; and gravity’s
their quantum toy.
I’ve seen him more than once with my
own eyes;
my own sweet foolish lump of fur
and appetite,
who seems as anchored to the Earth
as you and I—
I’ve seen him levitate, I’ve seen him
lift, weightless,
impossible, from lawn to fence,
or rug to bed,
up from the ground without a hair
or muscle moved.
No holy man who rises from
a bed of nails,
no hemp rope charmed by magic flute is
more miraculous.
He also walks through solid walls, but
don’t they all?

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Wyrms & Wormholes * F.J. Bergmann
• President’s Message • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• From the Small Press • Joshua Gage, Edward Cox, David C. Kopaska-Merkel Full reviews
• Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
• Xenopoetry • translation by Fred W. Bergmann
  • from “Cyberpunk Haikus” • José Luis Zárate
  • Magic • Esteban Moscarda

The Last Typewriter Contest

• Our Lady of Smith-Corona • Ann K. Schwader
• Shagspaw • Robert Borski
• The Last Typewriter • James S. Dorr
• Black Market • Neal Wilgus
• The last poem • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Futility • Kim L. Neidigh

Poetry

• Rock Pusher • David Lunde
• Starry Wisdom • Wade German
• Going Viral • Mary Turzillo
• Calaveras • Ann K. Schwader
• The Lurkers in Hubble’s Eye • Randall D. Larson
• No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore • James S. Dorr
• Seeded • Mariel Herbert
• Persephone, Trapped • Adrienne J. Odasso
• Pre-Op Instructions • Donna Glee
• The Robot As Engineering Assistant • Ken Poyner
• Answering the $466 Million Question • Marsheila Rockwell
• Lyonesse • Les Merton
• Medusa, Becoming • Ann K. Schwader
• Supermarket Starship • Kendall Evans
• Black Mars • Robert Borski
• Six Gods: A Variation • Kendall Evans
• Death Star • John C. Mannone
• Six Random Facts About Halley’s Comet • J.E. Stanley
• Let me tell you about dawn • M. Frost
• The music of fairy tales • P.S. Cottier
• Electric Touch • Angel Favazza
• I Am • David Glen Larson
• The Diamond-makers • M. Frost
• Phoenix Under Glass • Robert Borski
• The Moon Tripped • Angel Favazza
• And then he/she/it sneezed • Terrie Leigh Relf
• Their Quantum Toy • Jenny Blackford