The 2020 Rhysling Anthology & Awards

The 2020 Rhysling Awards

Short Poem Category

First Place
“Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5

Second Place
“when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive

Third Place (tie)
“Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov's SF, July/August

“The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring

spacer Long Poem Category

First Place
Heliobacterium daphnephilum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Star*Line 42.3

Second Place
“The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 28

Third Place (tie)
“The Macabre Modern” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press, 2019)

“Ode to the Artistic Temperament” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 42

112 members voted
Winner Biographies and Photos

The 2020 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2019

2020 Rhysling Anthology cover spacer

Editor and Rhysling Chair:
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Book Design: F.J. Bergmann
Cover Image: Another Day at the Beach
by Hal Tenny
Publisher: Science Fiction Poetry Association

$15.95 + $4 U.S. shipping; $11 Canada; $17 international). E-mail the treasurer for postage costs on multiple copies. $4 .pdf.

Payable by PayPal to SFPATreasurer@gmail.com

 



84 members nominated poems. 95 poets were nominated.

Short Poems (77 poems)
“Abeona, Goddess of Outward Journeys, Pilots the Interstellar Ark” • Nisa Malli • Apparition Lit 7
“Aliens declutter” • PS Cottier • Scifaikuest, August
“All-Father” • Vince Gotera • Dreams and Nightmares 111
“Alternate Galatea” • Amelia Gorman • Liminality 21
“Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee” • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Star*Line 42.4
“Blood Moon” • Sara Backer • Polu Texni, November 24
“The Book of Fly” • John Philip Johnson • Rattle 63
“The Certainty of Seeing” • Michelle Muenzler • Polu Texni, 3 June
“Collie Dogs In Space” • Debby Feo • A Poet Explores The Stars, ed. J. Alan Erwine (Nomadic Delirium Press)
“Continuum” • G. O. Clark • Analog, September/October
“Creation: Dark Matter Dating App” • Sandra J. Lindow • Asimov's SF, July/August
“Crimson Faces” • Maxwell I. Gold • Space & Time Magazine 135
“The Day the Animals Turned to Sand” • Tyler Hagemann • Amazing Stories, Spring
“Disassembly at Auction” • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Mobius: The Journal of Social Change 30:4
“Don’t Open the Box!” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press)
“drag strip drag” • Francine P. Lewis • Eye to the Telescope 32
“Eldritch Horror” • Katie Manning • Bowery Gothic I
“Encore” • Tim Jones • Big Hair Was Everywhere (ESAW)
“Fallen But Not Down” • Sarah Cannavo • Liminality 20
“Fallen Star” • Clay F. Johnson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
From “Moon Sonnet” • Lily Zhou • Poetry, May
“The Ghosts of Those” • Ron Riekki • Star*Line 42.2
“The Girl who Loved Birds” • Clara Blackwood • Amazing Stories 3
“Goddamn These Minotaurs” • Persephone Erin Hudson • paintbucket, November 10
“haiku” • Juan M. Perez • haikuniverse, June 8
“Halsted IV” • Jeff Crandall • Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October
“How to Care for Your Yesterday's Camel” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation)
“How to Colonize Ganymede” • Mary Soon Lee • New Myths 48
“How To Dance With Dark Matter” • Mary Soon Lee • Uppagus 37
“Huitzilopochtli” • Lorraine Schein • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice
“If All the Seas Were Blood” • D. L. Myers • Oracles from the Black Pool (Hippocampus Press)
“The Journey” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, April 1
“Lady Macbeth’s Green Gown” • Jacqueline West • Liminality 19
“Mary Agnes Chase (1869–1963)” • Jessy Randall • Strange Horizons, December 9
“Mary Poppins, 2100” • Cathy Tenzo • Typehouse 18
“The Mother Searches for Her Own Story” • Mary McMyne • Strange Horizons, November 11
“Mothsong” • John Philip Johnson • Liquid Imagination 42
“My Ghost Will Know The Way” • Beth Cato • The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August
“New Stars” • F. J. Bergmann • Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest
“The Night the Unicorn Leapt from the Tapestry” • Kate Pentecost • Liminality 19
“No Fairy Tale World” • Lisa Timpf • New Myths 47
“The Nonpareils: As Told by the Woman in the Gingerbread House” • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Star*Line 42.4
“Objects of Desire” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 113
“Óòjí Íjè [Kola Journey]” • Uche Ogbuji • FIYAH Literary Magazine 11
“The Planets? Sweet …” • Harris Coverley • Star*Line 42.4
“Phobos and Deimos” • W. C. Roberts • Chrome Bairn 82
“Prayer on a Friday Morning” • L. R. Harvey • American Diversity Report, December
“A Purring Cat is a Time Machine” • Beth Cato • Daikaijuzine 1
“Regarding me” • Michael H. Hanson • HWA Poetry Showcase VI
“Reparation” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11
“Revisiting the origins of language” • Terrie Leigh Relf • Space & Time Magazine 133
“Robert Goddard at Roswell” • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 42.4
“The Root King’s Winter” • Jessica P. Wick • Enchanted Living/Faerie Magazine, Winter
“A Rose Waits” • Adele Gardner • Dreams and Nightmares 113
“The Ruined Library” • Bruce Boston • Asimov's SF, May/June
“The Sacrifices” • Mike Allen • Sycorax 2
“Samsara” • Jason O’Toole • The Scrib Arts Journal, Fall
“Seven Reasons to Have Hope for a Better Future. Number Five Will Really Get You!” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February
“shoals of Miami” • Greer Woodward • Troutswirl, December 4
“Singing Ghost” • Catherine Kyle • Quail Bell, February
“The Snow Globe” • Marge Simon • Polu Texni, 8 December
“The Solace of the Farther Moon” • Allan Rozinski • Weirdbook Annual 2
“Sphere” • Francis W. Alexander • Scifaikuest XVI:1
“Steampunk Christmas” • David Clink • Star*Line 42.4
“Styx” • Christina Sng • Spectral Realms 11
“Taking, Keeping” • Jessica J. Horowitz • Apparition Lit 5
“Ten-Card Tarot, Pentacles Wild” • F. J. Bergmann • Eye to the Telescope 32
“Three of Swords, King of Cups” • Ali Trotta • Fireside Fiction, July
“To Skeptics” • Mary Soon Lee • Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August
“The Unseen” • Fran Wilde • Fireside Fiction, March
“Wake Up, Little Stevie” • Christina Olson • The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation)
“What You Hear When Your Best Friend Falls for a Supervillain” • Beth Cato • Star*Line 42.1
“when my father reprograms my mother {” • Caroline Mao • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive
“Where Have the Space Heroes Gone?” • Darrell Schweitzer •  Amazing Stories 77:1
“The Wishing Clock of Gassytown” • Deborah Wong • Frozen Wavelets 1
“Witch” • Mary Soon Lee • Polu Texni, October 21
“The Wolfman and Space Girl” • Neil Sloboda • Neon 48

Long Poems (49 poems)
“Afterlife” • F. J. Bergmann • Shoreline of Infinity 14
“Borrower” • Cislyn Smith • Strange Horizons, July 29
“Bright Record” • John W. Sexton • Polu Texni, April 8
“Cannibal Rex” • Allan Rozinski • Anatomy of Hate, ed. Karen Otto (Alban Lake Publishing)
“Childhood Memory from the Old Victorian House on Warner” • Beth Cato • Uncanny 27
“Children of the Trees” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, March 11
“The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 28
“The City That Changed Hands” • Maya Chhabra • Strange Horizons, December 23
“Consumption” • Emma J. Gibbon • Eye to the Telescope 33
“Crop Circles” • Lori R. Lopez • Deep Fried Horror, Mother's Day Edition
“The Daily Freak Show” • Bruce Boston • New Myths 47
“Driven” • Marcie Tentchoff • Outposts of Beyond VII:1
“Eight Simulations for the Missing” • T. D. Walker • Small Waiting Objects (CW Books)
“Envoy” • F. J. Bergmann • Polu Texni, October 28
“For My Daughter Who Will Ask for a Seismograph Implant” • T. D. Walker • Small Waiting Objects (CW Books)
“Fune-RL” • Emma J. Gibbon • Strange Horizons, 15 July
“Green Sky” • Herb Kauderer • Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing)
Heliobacterium daphnephilum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Star*Line 42.3
“If Love is Real, So Are Fairies” • Cynthia So • Uncanny 29
“In The End, Only The Gods” • Christina Sng • Tales Of The Lost Vol. 1, eds. Eugene Johnson & Steve Dillon (Things in the Well)
“Inside My Belly” • Alessandro Manzetti • The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing)
“Keep My Course True” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 112
“Lines Written by Moonlight at Whitby Abbey” • Clay F. Johnson • Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing)
“The Macabre Modern” • Kyla Lee Ward • The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press)
“Maculation” • F. J. Bergmann • Spectral Realms 10
“The making of dragons” • Herb Kauderer • Altered Reality Magazine, January 30
“The Mining Town” • Holly Lyn Walrath • 2019 SFPA Poetry Contest
“My Stories Are Hungry” • John C. Mannone • American Diversity Report, April 10
“Nan-e” • Leon Mackenzie • Neon 49
“Nocturnal Embers” • Lori R. Lopez • The Sirens Call 43
“Obsidian” • Fungisayi Sasa • New Myths 46
“Ode to the Artistic Temperament” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 42
“Reincarnation” • John C. Mannone • Abyss & Apex 69
“A Ride through Faerie” • Clay F. Johnson • Enchanted Conversation, September
“The Scarecrow’s Lover” • Alexandria Baisden • Abyss & Apex 72
“The Scroll of Thoth” • Frank Coffman • The Coven’s Hornbook and Other Poems (Bold Venture Press)
“Scylla and Charybdis” • Wade German • Weird Fiction Review 9
“Sea Witch From the Deep” • Ellen Huang • Apparition Lit 7
“The Storm Witch” • Colleen Anderson • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter Solstice
“Stormbound” • Marsheila Rockwell • Polu Texni, February 11
Sycophantam astrum” • Rebecca Buchanan • Eye to the Telescope 34
“Tarot Times” • Bruce Boston • Illumen, summer
“tetrahedral edifices of a sticky rice realm” • D. A. Xiaolin Spires • Mithila Review, November 20
“Treason” • Shana Ross • Liminality 20
“the undrowned” • Catherine Kyle • Crab Fat Magazine, January
“why not?” • Gerri Leen • New Myths 49
“witches we” • Adele Gardner • Bluff & Vine 3
“The Wolf Isn't The Only One Who Hides in Human Clothes” • Natalie Wang • Corvid Queen, January 5
“The Woman Who Talks to Her Dog at the Beach” • Geoff Inverarity • Geist 113

Nominations per publication (67 publications):
2   Abyss & Apex
1   Altered Reality Magazine
3   Amazing Stories
2   American Diversity Report
1   Analog Science Fiction and Fact
1   Anatomy of Hate, ed. Karen Otto (Alban Lake Publishing)
3   Apparition Lit
2 spacer Asimov’s Science Fiction
1   Big Hair Was Everywhere (ESAW)
1   Bluff & Vine
1   Bowery Gothic
1   Chrome Bairn
1   Corvid Queen
1   The Coven’s Hornbook and Other Poems (Bold Venture Press)
1   Crab Fat Magazine
1   Daikaijuzine
1   Deep Fried Horror
4   Dreams and Nightmares
1   Enchanted Conversation
1   Enchanted Living/Faerie Magazine
3   Eternal Haunted Summer
5   Eye to the Telescope
2   Fireside Fiction
1   FIYAH Literary Magazine
1   Frozen Wavelets
1   Geist
1   Haikuniverse
1   Illumen
2   Influence of the Moon, ed. Shannon Yseult (518 Publishing)
2   The Last Mastodon (Rattle Foundation)
5   Liminality
1   Liquid Imagination
2   The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities (P'rea Press)
3   The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
1   Maria W. Faust 2019 Sonnet Contest
1   Mithila Review
1   Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
2   Neon
5   New Myths
1   Oracles from the Black Pool (Hippocampus Press)
1   Outposts of Beyond
1   paintbucket
1   The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing)
1   A Poet Explores The Stars, ed. J. Alan Erwine (Nomadic Delirium Press)
1   Poetry
9   Polu Texni
2   Quail Bell
1   Rattle
2   Scifaikuest
1   The Scrib Arts Journal
1   SFPA Poetry Contest
1   Shoreline of Infinity
1   Silver Blade
1   The Sirens Call
2   Small Waiting Objects (CW Books)
2   Space & Time Magazine
3   Spectral Realms
9   Star*Line
6   Strange Horizons
1   Sycorax Journal
1   Tales Of The Lost Vol. 1, eds. Eugene Johnson & Steve Dillon (Things in the Well)
1   Troutswirl
1   Typehouse
3   Uncanny
1   Uppagus
1   Weird Fiction Review
1   Weirdbook Annual

background image sfpa logo