SF Poetry

After nearly two decades Marge Simon is stepping down as editor of STAR*LINE . As editor she introduced dozens of poets to the sf/f/h genres. Dozens of the poems she selected for the magazine were at the very least nominated for the Rhysling and some of them won. Through her work as an editor she deeply influenced and shasped sf/f/h poetry Read more »

I am sad to hear that the outstanding British df/h ezine and important showcase for poetry MURKY DEPTHS. To me its amazing as to how quickly a new ezine like MURKY DEPTHS Many of the poems it publishes are nominated for RHYSLINGS and other awards. can quickly become an important showcase for poetry. Its an interesting contrast to long established magazine like ASIMOV'S publish a vast number of poems and it cant get a single Rhysling nomination. There is a moral out there but I am damned if I can see it. I would love to see comments on the topic.

By now if you are reading this section you probably know that Bruce Boston is the leading poet in the sf/f/h genres and one of the most prolific. This new collection from him is devoted to surreal poems he has published in the past s well as original ones written for the collection. Surreal is a form that is well suited to the sf/f/h genres and Boston is adept at writing them but I have yet to see a form that Boston did not do well. My only caveat is that I think surreal poems that work best are those of teN lines or less and most of the poems in this collection are over ten lines. Read more »

Helen Marshall's SKETON LEAVES (Kelp Queen Press ) is a poetry collection that retells the story of Peter Pan, something that you would think be a lot more common. Anyway the folowing link takes to ome of the poems and artwork used in the collection and its well worth the visit. http://skelton-key.net.

This is a mainstream literary poetry collection. I bring it to your attention because it is not intended to be a speculative/sf/f/h poetry collection. Yet it has one clearly speculative poem, 'Space Walking' by R. S. Thomas plus many of the poems have specific speculative/sf/f/h allusions in them including one poem that refers to Amazing Stories. The point is that speculative themes and imagery is part of mainstream literary poetry in English language markets. It is not largely confined to genre and children/YA markets