Hello, fellow travelers!
Thank you all again for your nominations for this year’s Hugo Awards! Yes, I am going to keep thanking you the entire time—your commitment to reading widely in this field of ours has a chance to make this year’s Best Poem special award a true revolution in the history of the awards. While the awards administration team is doing their part, we should keep acquainting ourselves with some of the standout poets in this wonderful genre, so this week we’re chatting with SFPA Grand Master and editor David C. Kopaska-Merkel!
David C. Kopaska-Merkel won the 2006 Rhysling Award for best long poem (for a collaboration with Kendall Evans), and edits Dreams & Nightmares magazine. He has edited Star*line, an issue of Eye To The Telescope, several Rhysling anthologies, co-edited the 2023 Dwarf Stars anthology, and is an SFPA Grandmaster. His poems have been published in Analog, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. Some Disassembly Required, a collection of dark speculative poetry, won the 2023 Elgin Award.
How did you get into writing speculative poetry?
I had been writing speculative fiction for seven or eight years when we were about to have our first child. I decided that because I would have much less free time available I should switch to poetry. It took me a long time to get my sea legs, even after reading a bunch of what had already been published. After about four years (1986) I joined the SFPA (then the Science Fiction Poetry Association) and was introduced pretty quickly to what was out there, including what was then winning the Rhysling Awards.
What do you enjoy about speculative poetry?
Speculative writing has always been my cup of tea; a lot of children’s literature is quite obviously speculative. The stories I liked best were certainly that way. Stories like The Runaway Robot by Lester Del Ray, and The Hobbit, which does contain speculative poetry, Where the Wild Things Are, any of the illustrated poems by Dr. Seuss, and many others. Speculative literature explores worlds that are far more exciting and variable than the real world. And let’s face it, there could be something hiding in the woods; why not a gremlin, unicorn, alien, or elf? I started reading speculative literature at five and didn’t look back.
One of the things I like best about poetry is how you can pack so much into a relatively small number of words. This applies to speculative poetry as well as any other kind. I write poems of different lengths, but I am more and more attracted to senryu and similar forms, which are nearly the ultimate in concision.
As a past administrator of the SFPA Rhysling Awards, what are your feelings about poetry slowly gaining wider award recognition—including at this year’s Hugo Awards?
I think it’s exciting! For a long time it seemed like poetry was only the province of poets, even within the genre, and that nobody paid much attention. This, even though hundreds of speculative poets also write fiction. Some of the greats, like Jane Yolen, Roger Zelazny, and Clark Ashton Smith, write or wrote both. If you don’t read poetry but you attend Worldcon, you will certainly have the chance to be exposed to it, and in no inconspicuous way! Poetry packs a punch, but a lot of people don’t know it yet.
As an SFPA Grand Master, magazine editor, and Rhysling Anthology editor, what have you noticed about the speculative poetry genre’s growth up to this moment?
I have no mind-blowing insights, I’m afraid, but I’ve noticed a progressive increase in the proportion of women winning speculative poetry awards and in the proportion of highly-rated poems being horror poems. I don’t know whether these two trends are related! I have noticed the first trend in the SFPA awards (I don’t know about other groups like the Horror Writers Association). I have also noticed more women submitting good speculative poetry to Dreams and Nightmares. Possibly related to this, more people today are taking intimate looks at the subject(s), rather than the more detached views we used to see. These are not new trends, but they continue. Racial and cultural diversity are also definitely increasing, though it’s harder to quantify this through manuscript submissions. I view all of this very positively.
What is your favourite poem you’ve read recently?
I hate the entire concept of favorites, and not just in poetry—in anything! I do have a favorite flavor of ice cream, but even there I really have an array of similar flavors that I like equally well. Jamocha almond fudge from Baskin-Robbins and Mudslide from Tillamook are up there! In the context of poetry, I actually can give you an answer. A week ago I finished reading Mary Soon Lee’s massive The Sign of the Dragon. This is a book-length tale written in poems. Collectively they are incredibly wonderful. Is it cheating to answer the question with a book, rather than an individual poem? So be it. I’m not an emotional person, but my eyes teared up in a few spots.
Read David’s poem “An Open Letter to Our Astronauts” here.
That’s all for this week! Although nominations have ended, I hope that you have been inspired enough to keep digging into the wonderful speculative poetry that is being written this year and in years prior. Who knows—you may have to keep your favourite verses in mind for next year’s award season! Feel free to share the wonderful poetry you’ve been discovering with us on social media or in the comments so we can delight in your reading!
Until next time, may tomorrow and your good days always rhyme!
Brandon O’Brien is a writer, performance poet, teaching artist, and tabletop game designer from Trinidad and Tobago. His work has been shortlisted for the 2014 and 2015 Small Axe Literary Competitions and the 2020 Ignyte Award for best in speculative poetry, and has been published in many genre magazines and collections. He is the former poetry editor of FIYAH. His debut poetry collection, Can You Sign My Tentacle?, available from Interstellar Flight Press, is the winner of the 2022 Elgin Award. He is the poet laureate for Seattle Worldcon 2025, and the first poet laureate of any Worldcon.