the 2017 rhysling anthology the 2017 rhysling anthology

218 Pages·2017·0.81 MB·English

THE 2017 RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY
The best science fiction, fantasy & horror poetry of 2016
selected by the Science Fiction Poetry Association
edited by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
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Also available from the
Science Fiction Poetry Association
The 2016 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry of 2015
Edited by Charles Christian
The 2015 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry of 2014
Edited by Rich Ristow
The 2014 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry of 2013
Edited by Elizabeth R. McClellan
The 2013 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry of 2012
Edited by John C. Mannone
The 2012 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry of 2011
Edited by Lyn C. A. Gardner
The 2011 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Poetry of 2010
Edited by David Lunde
The Alchemy of Stars: Rhysling Award Winners Showcase
Edited by Roger Dutcher and Mike Allen
Order from astore.amazon.com/sciefictpoeta-20
or contact [email protected]
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the
R
h y s l i n g
A
nthology
THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION,
FANTASY AND HORROR
POETRY OF 2016
SELECTED BY THE
SCIENCE FICTION
POETRY ASSOCIATION
EDITED BY
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Copyrigh t © 2017
by the Science Fiction Poetry Association
in the names of the individual contributors. 
All works used by permission.

All rights to individual poems revert to authors or poem copyright holders. No
part of this compilation may be reproduced in any form without permission
in writing from the SFPA president, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical or analytical reviews or articles.

Editor and Rhysling Chair: David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Book Design: F. J. Bergmann
Publisher: Science Fiction Poetry Association
SFPA President: Bryan Thao Worra
Cover image by Liu Junwei, aka Shark (Shayudan 鲨鱼丹)
sharksden.deviantart.com
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The 2017 Rhysling Anthology: the best science fiction, fantasy, and horror
poetry of 2016 / selected by the Science Fiction Poetry Association; edited by
David C. Kopaska-Merkel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-544713-40-3
1. Poetry. 2. Science fiction poetry. 3. Fantasy poetry. 4. Horror poetry.
I. Kopaska-Merkel, David C.
For more information about the
Science Fiction Poetry Association,
visit www.sfpoetry.com
A
cknowledgments
Abad, Anne Carly • “This Rat” • Chrome Baby 48
Al-Bedawi, Layla • “Propagation” • Strange Horizons 18 April
Alexander, Francis Wesley • “3D printer” • Scifaikuest, November
Anderson, E. Kristin • “Loose String” • Coe Review 47.1
“Selkie” • Faerie Magazine, Summer
Backer, Sara • “The Genius” • Mithila Review 3
Barber, David • “Foreign Policy” • Star*Line 39.3
Bergmann, F. J. • “Antagonist” • Spectral Realms 5
“Further” • Lovecraft eZine 38
“How far does night have to fall?” • The Future Fire 38
Bernier, Lore • “Exploratory Colony 454—15th May, 2052” • Eye to the Telescope 20
Betts, Matt • “I Left My Heart in San Francisco. I Left Yours Somewhere in Colorado …”
• Underwater Fistfight (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
“Spoiler Alert” • Underwater Fistfight (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Bishop, Edith Hope • “When the Gunman Comes” • Mythic Delirium 2.3
Blackford, Jenny • “Houses of the Living, Houses of the Dead” • Ipswich Poetry Feast
International Poetry Competition, Highly Commended
Bolivar, Adam • “The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner” • Spectral Realms 5
Borski, Robert • “The Starlet Who Married A Monster” • Lupine Lunes, ed. Lester Smith
(Popcorn Press)
Boston, Bruce and Manzetti, Alessandro • “The Great Unknown” • Illumen, Spring
“Legend of the Albino Pythons and the Bloody Child” • Polu Texni 18 April
Bovenmyer, Karen • “The Blind Elephants of Io” • Shortest Day, Longest Night (Arachne Press)
Brown, Josh • “Star Dust” • Illumen 25
Buchanan, Rebecca • “Dame Evergreen” • Faerie Magazine, Winter
Burch, Susan • “appendage sale” • Star*Line 39.2
Cancre, Anton • “A Bug in the System” • Quick Shivers about Bugs (Cosmonomic Multimedia)
Caplan, Shari • “One Canoe” • Nonbinary Review 11: Anne of Green Gables
Caswell, Dennis • “My Pet Alien” • Rattle, Fall
Cato, Beth • “The Box of Dust and Monsters” • Devilfish Review 17
“The Death of the Horse” • Remixt Magazine 1:8
“Morning During Migration Season” • Star*Line 39.4
Clark, G. O. • “Bottle Cast Upon A Dry Sea” • Asimov’s Science Fiction, February
“The Dark between the Stars” • Star*Line 39.4
Clink, David • “In Defence of Science” • The Role of Lightning in Evolution (Kelp Queen Press,
CZP)
“A Natural History of Snow” • The Role of Lightning in Evolution (Kelp Queen Press, CZP)
“Surviving a Canadian Poem” • The Role of Lightning in Evolution (Kelp Queen Press, CZP)
Cottier, P. S. • “Glastonbury, 1994” • Project 365 + 1, June 29
Daruwala, Rohinton • “The Poem Gardens of the Ascari” • Strange Horizons, 13 June
Davitt, Deborah L. • “Past Imperfect” • Poetry Quarterly, Summer
“Storm Miners” • Blue Monday Review, August
v
De Winter, Corrine • “Always the Black and White Keys” • Horror Writers Association Poetry
Showcase Vol. III, ed. David E. Cowen
Dioses, Ashley • “My Corpse, My Groom” • The Audient Void: A Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark
Fantasy 1
“Witch Lord of the Hunt” • Eternal Haunted Summer, Spring
Dorr, James S. • “Godzilla vs. King Kong” • Dreams and Nightmares 103
Dumars, Denise • “Sutekh From The Throne” • Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Vol.
III, ed. David E. Cowen
Erin, Alexandra • “Data Mine” • medium.com October 24
“Falling (A Part)” • medium.com June 8
Esaias, Timons • “Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek” • Why Elephants No
Longer Communicate in Greek (Concrete Wolf)
Evans, Kendall • “The Chinese Pirate Ching Shih Plays Go With a Hooded Opponent” •
Abyss & Apex 59
Every, Gary • “History Teacher” • Star*Line 39.4
Fanchiang, Alice • “Skin” • Liminality 10
Fedyk, Karolina • “What Wants Us” • Star*Line 39.2
Frazier, Robert • “Luminous Decay” • Dreams and Nightmares 103
Gaiman, Neil • “The Long Run” • Uncanny, November/December
Gardner, Adele • “Well, Water, Stars” • Silver Blade 32
Geater, Charlotte • “little stomach” • Strange Horizons, 26 September
Gordon, Alan Ira • “At the Robot National Convention” • Star*Line 39.3
Goss, Theodora • “Rose Child” • Uncanny 13
Gotera, Vince • “Elegy for Iain Banks” • Star*Line 39.3
“Space Opera” • Altered Reality Magazine 1
Graham, Neile • “Feles Alieni Vere Sunt” • Devilfish Review 17
Hanson, Michael H. • “Until Dawn” • Poetic Hustles 2 (Black Freighter Productions)
Hawke, Lee S. • “The Dark Lord’s Diary” • Star*Line 39.1
Hinderliter, Carolyn M. • “Christmas on Mars” • Scifaikuest XIII:4
Hoffmann, Ada • “The Giantess’s Dream” • Twisted Moon 1
Hope, Akua Lezli • “Ink” • Yellow Chair Review, Horror Issue, October
Johnson, John Philip • “Martian Garden” • The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/
August
Jones, Daniel R. • “The woman on the bus encounters time dilation” • Altered Reality Magazine,
December 16
Jones, Tim • “Memorial” • New Sea Land (Makaro Press)
Jönsson, Johan • “Talk to the Machines” • Dreams and Nightmares 104
Kauderer, Herb • “After” • Asimov’s SF, November/December
“Cobblestone Dragon” • Polu Texni, July 11
Kim, Eun-byeol • “Phoenix Fire, Tabula Rasa” • Stone Telling 13
Lawrence, Jennifer • “Väinämöinen Sings” • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter
Lawrence, Kathleen A. • “Dorothy Delivered” • Altered Reality Magazine 1
Lee, B. J. • “Riding the Dark” • Frostfire Worlds, February
vi the 2017 Rhysling Anthology
Lee, Mary Soon • “First Lesson” • Silver Blade 30
“Not Like This” • Apex Magazine, August 4
“Returning” • The Open Mouse, May 6
Leibowitz, Sandi • “Im Wald” • Mythic Delirium 3.2
Lemberg, Rose • “The Ash Manifesto” • Strange Horizons, 10 October
“The Journeymaker to Keddar (II)” • Marginalia to Stone Bird (Aqueduct Press)
Leung, Muriel • “World’s Tiniest Human” • The Adroit Journal 16
Lipman, Darren • “Interview with a 22nd-Century Sex Worker” • Strange Horizons, 4 July
Lu, S. Qiouyi • “The Lies You Learned” • Liminality 7
Liburd, Tonya • “The Architect of Bonfires” • Space & Time 127
Mannone, John C. • “Adam’s Rendezvous with Dante” • Last Darn Rites Anthology (Whitesboro
Writers, 2016)
“Stellar Quake” • The New England Journal of Medicine 375:1305
Matthews, Airea D. • “Descent of the Composer” • Poem-a-Day October 24, Academy of
American Poets
Mayfield, Carl • “The birds forget to sing” • Abbey 147
McClellan, Elizabeth R. • “Getting Winterized: A Guide To Rural Living” • Angels of the
Meanwhile, ed. Alexandra Erin, April
McMyne, Mary • “Bones Knock in the House” • Rose Red Review 18
Miller, Terry • “Salome’s New King” • Devolution Z: The Horror Magazine 10
Mirov, Lev • “The Doppelgänger and the Ghost” • Eye to the Telescope 22
Myers, D. L. • “The Phosphorescent Fungi” • Spectral Realms 4
O’Brien, Brandon • “god-date” • Uncanny 9
Odasso, A. J. • “Nothing Goes Away” • The New England Review of Books
“Sargasso Sea” • Remixt Magazine 1:1
“Widening Gyre” • Not A Drop anthology (Beautiful Dragons Press)
Opperman, K. A. • “Invocation of Diana” • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer
“Werewolf” • Spectral Realms 4
O’Quinn, Cindy • “The Spook Tree” • Blood Moon Rising Magazine 66
Paden, Jeremy • “Song of the Encantado” • Apex Magazine 83
Paja, Triin • “Quasar” • Cleaver 14
Pilkington, Ace G. • “Orpheus” • The Horror Zine, June
Post, Steph • “Alice-Ecila” • Nonbinary Review 10: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Poyner, Ken • “Adolescence” • Star*Line 39.4
“At Issue, the Miramo” • Dreams and Nightmares 103
“The Robot by the Fireplace” • Eye to the Telescope 20
Ralls, Jack • “La Villa de Sirenia” • Star*Line 39.4
Rathbone, Wendy • “Build a Rocketship Contest: Alternative Class A Instructions and
Suggestions” • Asimov’s Science Fiction, January
“We Shall Meet in the Star-Spackled Ruins” • 2016 SFPA Poetry Contest
Reinhart, John • “The Butterflies of Traxl IV” • The Pedestal Magazine 79
“Exotic Heads Trimmed Neatly” • Eye to the Telescope 21
Relf, Terrie Leigh • “The Old Ones Gather” • Scifaikuest, May
Rhee, Margaret • “Robot Testimonial Z” • Mission at Tenth
Rook, Hester J. • “The Sparrows in Her Hair” • Strange Horizons 18 July
the 2017 Rhysling Anthology vii
Sereno, M. • “To the weaver, from the woman who slew Bakunawa” • Stone Telling 13
Sexton, John W. • “The Bird Prince” • Faerie Magazine Summer
“Sappho and the Woman of Starlight” • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter
Simon, Marge • “George Tecumseh Sherman’s Ghosts” • Silver Blade 32
“Less than Human” • You, Human (Dark Regions Press)
Smith, Simon • “The Inconceivable Shape” • Chrome Baby 45
Sng, Christina • “The Leviathans of Europa” • Polu Texni 10 October
Spahn, A. C. • “Defender Prime” • Outposts of Beyond July
Steinfeld, J. J. • “Learning the History of War” • Star*Line 39.3
Stone, Mary • “The Last Woman on Earth” • Amethyst Arsenic 6:1
Sundar, Naru Dames • “Were-” • Liminality, Summer
Takács, Bogi • “Marginalia on Eiruvin 45b” • Bracken Magazine 2
Thornfield-Long, Ann • “Love in the Time of Apocalypse” • Silver Blade 31
Trotta, Ali • “The Persecution of Witches” • Uncanny 11
Tsamaase, Tlotlo • “I Will Be Your Grave” • Strange Horizons, 7 November
van Berkum, K H • “The Fantasy of Hans Christian Andersen” • Strange Horizons, 8 February
Vang, Burlee • “To Live In The Zombie Apocalypse” • Poem-A-Day, December 20
Vlek, Aaron • “When Coyote Called Down the Stars” • The Were-Traveler, December 21
Wack, Margaret • “Classification of Folktales” • Strange Horizons 2016 Fund Drive Bonus
Walker, T. D. • “Portrait of the Captain with Small Waiting Objects” • Recompose 2
Walrath, Holly Lyn • “For Lonnie” • Liminality 9
“Revolution (1764–1783)” • Abyss & Apex 58
Wesick, Jon • “Richard Feynman’s Commute” • The Were-Traveler, December 21
Weyant, Karen J. • “To the Girl Who Ran Through Crop Circles” • Strange Horizons 15
August
Wheeler, Lesley • “Absentation” • Thrush Poetry Journal November
Wilgus, Neal • “Quack” • Dreams and Nightmares 104
Williams, Jane • “The Memory Machines” • The Pedestal Magazine 79
Winn, Sarah Ann • “Best of” • Found Poetry Review: Bowietry
Winward, Shannon Connor • “Terran Mythology” • Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October
“Thirteen Ways to See a Ghost” • 2016 SFPA Poetry Contest
Woodward, Greer • “*For Quick Sale*” • Lupine Lunes, ed. Lester Smith (Popcorn Press)
Wytovich, Stephanie M. • “Of My Wounds, There Are Many” • Sanitarium Magazine 48
Yolen, Jane • “Black Bull of Norroway” • Goblin Fruit, Winter
“Death Rides USAir At Night” • Parody 5:1
“Rusalka” • Mythic Delirium 3.1
Zaccagnino, Danielle • “Supercomputer Spends the Night” • Weirderary 4
viii the 2017 Rhysling Anthology
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Bursting into Light
I am tempted to write “These are wonderful; read them” and be done with it.
Many of you might prefer that. Then again, you are not compelled to read this
introduction. So, for those who haven’t already turned the page …
I have been reading speculative poetry since childhood, beginning with the
songs in The Hobbit, but I didn’t get serious about writing it until we were expecting
our first child. I thought I wouldn’t have enough time anymore to write fiction.
One thing led to another, as often happens, and soon I joined the SFPA. Back in
the Proteropoetic, the Rhysling Anthology was a double handful of 8½" by 11" pages
stapled together in the upper left corner. Now it is a handsome trade paperback,
with a glossy color cover, and it is really something to sink your teeth into. Except
no, don’t eat it, because you’ll want to add it to your collection. Come to think of
it, those old classroom-handout-style Rhyslings are probably collectors’ items.
This is the 39th Rhysling Anthology. This year, our nominees (121 poets; 152
poems [98 short and 54 long]) come from 80 different publications and venues,
including both genre and mainstream journals, several anthologies, books by
individual authors, and two contests (Ipswich and the SFPA Poetry contest). A few
things to note about this year’s Rhysling volume:
• Nominations of poems by Neil Gaiman, and by Grand Masters Yolen,
Boston, and Simon;
• Altered Reality Magazine, Mithila Review and Twisted Moon secured Rhysling
nominations in their first year of publication;
• Tlotlo Tsamaase is the first nominee from Botswana;
• Jeremy Paden teaches at the University of Transylvania (!); and
• Burlee Vang is the first Hmong poet to be nominated for a Rhysling,
coming from a culture that traces its roots to pre-Dynastic China, but
didn’t have a written tradition until about sixty years ago.
This new Rhysling volume is so massive (compared to its predecessors) partly
because communication, publishing, and access to literature are much easier than
they used to be, but more because the SFPA has grown so much. The field has grown,
and the organization with it. People all over the world are writing speculative poetry,
and publishing it, in more ways and places than ever before. Print zines are easier
and cheaper to produce, but there are also digital zines delivered to readers in divers
formats, as well as webzines of various degrees of formality and sophistication.
There are podcasts and audiozines, blogs, zines on various social-media platforms,
and more forms of publishing come into being like bubble universes from the ether.
We are all exposed to more diverse speculative poetry in these pages than ever before,
because of our own collective efforts. Anyone not connected with our organization
could pick up a copy of this anthology and get a good idea of what speculative
poetry is. I’m sure that plenty of excellent speculative poems remain unknown to
most of us. The Rhysling Anthology, after all, contains at most two poems nominated
the 2017 Rhysling Anthology ix