Amazing Stories: Poetry Round-up September 2013

I thought I'd try something new with this week's Amazing Stories blog post about Science Fiction Poetry. I found many good poems inn a quick search of the web and a couple of things I've come across through-out September and compiled them into one article for your reading pleasure.

Here's a snippet:

Strange Horizons has a long history of publishing good speculative poetry. A few poems from this weekly online magazine make it onto the Rhysling Award ballot each year. This week gifts us with a beautiful poem by Mari Ness (whose poetry has appeared on my podcast Poetry Planet): “The Loss”.

To read the full article go here!

Enjoy!

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Concert: Mozart "Credo Mass" and CPE Bach "Magnificat"

On Sunday, 22 September 2013, I sang in Dillenburg, Germany at the Catholic Church. I sing there a lot, on average once or twice a year. This time it was CPE Bach and Mozart on the program.

The Mozart is a lesser known piece but quite wonderful. The solo-quartet has bits woven throughout the mostly choral setting of the traditional ordinary mass parts. There are no arias or long completely solo lines, but the effect is gorgeous. We soloists stood among the choir (in a row together in the front however) and so our voices just emerged from the choir.

I've longed to sing the "Magnificat" by C.P.E. Bach for many years. It's a spectacular piece. Quite brutal, um, I mean high for the choir and the soloists. The choir, the Bezirkskantorei Dillenburg, was in fine form, as were the other soloists: Sybille Kamphues (Alto), Hans-Jörg Mammel (Tenor) and Wolfgang Weiss (Bass). I on the other hand was a little compromised, such that it was a bit of a struggle to get through the concert. But I hope it wasn't too noticeable... I have an appointment with a specialist next Monday, hopefully it won't be anything too difficult to fix. :-(

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Amazing Stories - More Awards! The Rhysling Award

So, did I say it was awards season? But with WorldCon in San Antonio, TX just past you'd know that. That is, if you are interested in Science Fiction in any manner. But if you aren't you probably aren't reading this! Let me know in the comments if you get to the end, despite having no love for Science Fiction! :-)

The Rhysling Award for 2013 was officially announced at WorldCon and I've posted an announcement of my own and a discussion of the two winning poems at Amazing Stories Magazine.

Here's a snippet:

...

However, the main thrust of this post is about the Rhysling Award, the Science Fiction Poetry Association's award for poetry in two length categories: short (under 40 lines) and long (40 lines and over). As per the rules only SFPA members are entitled to vote, so it's more like a Nebula Award than a popular award, but if you are interested in helping choose the best SF Poetry becoming a member is very easy and quite inexpensive, especially if you are willing to read the association's journal Star*Line as a PDF instead of in print. I urge you to check it out.

This year's winners were gleaned from a selection of 110 poems (70 short and 40 long). which could be found in 57 different print, online and audio publications. Kudos go to Star*Line, Goblin Fruit and Stone Telling with 11, 9 and 7 poems nominated respectively.

I will be producing an edition of Poetry Planet for StarShipSofa showcasing the Rhysling Award winning and placing poems, much like I've done in the past 2 years. I hope you'll listen! It's always a wonderful way to get fresh insight and deepen your understanding of a poem. But I'm not biased at all.

Terry A. Garey's winning short poem, "The Cat Star", published in the anthology Lady Poetesses from Hell (Bag Person Press) won by ....

Go to Amazing Stories for the whole article! Enjoy!

And if you don't normally read Science Fiction I'd like to encourage you to read this blog post by Nina Munteanu about "When Science Fiction IS Science Fiction". She does a great job of illustrating what it is about SF that I love and what motivates me to read it. Let me know what you think!

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Poetry Planet No. 10 - Elgin and Dwarf Stars Awards Showcase

Poetry Planet is back!

After 8 months, it's embarrassing to say, I've finally produced another Poetry Planet. This is the 10th one. You may (or may not) be wondering what happened to No. 9. Well, way back with the Time Travel episodes, I did something ridiculous and numbered that split episode Nos. 5a and 5b. And then went on with No. 6 etc. However, there have, in fact, been 10 episodes, so I'm going to remedy that now!

This 10th edition of Poetry Planet is dedicated to the recently announced winners and placers of both the new Elgin Award and the Dwarf Stars Award in Science Fiction Poetry awarded by the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

You'll find it on StarShipSofa.com in episode No. 303 at about the 01:17.0 marker. As usual, you can listen to it on the site itself, or download it on iTunes or your usual podcatcher.

Linkety linkage:

You'll hear a poem from each of the best chapbook length collections (Elgin Award):

• 3. Come Late to the Love of Birds, Sandra Kasturi, 
• 2. The House of Forever, Samantha Henderson and 
• 1. (Winner) Out of the Black Forest, F. J. Bergmann 

And a poem from each of the full-length collections (Elgin Award)

• 3. The Edible Zoo, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, 
• 2. Notes from the Shadow City, Bruce Boston and Gary William Crawford and 
• 1. (Winner) Lovers & Killers, Mary Turzillo 

The top 3 Dwarf Stars Award poems

3. "Sarcophagus", (inkscrawl 3) N.E. Taylor,
2. "The Hidden", from Lovers & Killers, Mary Turzillo and
1. (Winner) "Basho after Cinderella (iii)", (Rattle 38), Deborah P. Kolodji

Please follow the links to their websites and/or books and check them out!

I had the pleasure of reviewing each of the collections, which placed in the Elgin Award on Amazing Stories. If you would like to check out those reviews please go to my author page.

Enjoy!!

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Amazing Stories - Awards! Science Fiction Poetry Awards!

It's been a very long time since I blogged here. Well, it's been a very long time since I did much of anything such as blogging or podcasting. I've been away on an extended vacation. We spent the summer in my home town, living with Mom in the house I grew up in, which I probably won't ever see the inside of again. :-(

But I don't mean to be maudlin. I have great news for you! It's award season for the Science Fiction community. This weekend (Aug. 29 - Sept. 1) is WorldCon, or LoneStarCon 3, which is the world Science Fiction convention occurring this year in San Antonio, Texas. The Hugo Awards are the main thing at this convention, but I'm not going to go into that. Mostly because they don't give an award in SF Poetry. The Science Fiction Poetry Association has established their own set of awards due to that lack and the lack of a Nebula Award in poetry. So, as a matter of fact, the SFPA is announcing the winners of the Rhysling Award and presenting the awards to the winners of the Dwarf Stars Award and the first annual Elgin Award. I've blogged about the latter two awards over on Amazing Stories. Please go here to read all about it. I warn you though, you'll be led down a rabbit hole...

Here's a snippet:

After an extended summer break I’ve returned with lots of exciting news and a whole bunch of wonderful books, which I’ll be reviewing for you in the coming months. It’s award season!!! With WorldCon this weekend, that may seem obvious, but the Hugo Award is for everything but poetry. So, the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has created a few awards to fill the gap.

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I'm a poet. I didn't know it....

...until today that is!

I'm am now an officially published poet! You can go read the lovely thing, titled "Orbit" here.

(Edit: Unfortunately, the website where this poem was published no longer exists. So I'll post it here.)

This is my (so far) one and only completed poem. Maybe I'll write more. Now that I've started - why not?

One of my acquaintances from the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Chris Vera, is someone whose sentiments closely match mine. We see each other's updates on FaceBook. Chris saw my post about my mother selling the house she's lived in for 40 years. The house that my brother and I grew up in. He said, "You should write a poem about that" (or some such). I said, "I don't write poetry". He said, "Try!". So I did. Chris has been very encouraging in the process and helpful in his guidance, but not intrusive. I asked a few other people to read it and give their critique, which was also a good thing.

I hope you like it.

Home is that place that has gravitational pull.
Small and running in circles
From Living Room through Dining Room
To Kitchen and on again the orbit began.
There are lumps to prove the bumpy initiation.
The house, my Home, was a constant -
The point from which my outward spiral originated.
With lift-off came revolutions
around town and then country
even traversing the water
could not sever or break
the tether proving robust.
The pull of Home omnipresent
And requiring the occasional return
Of the prodigal daughter.
Too many turns to call any other place Home.
With Mother letting go of the house.
Where will Home be now?
There is a heaviness of loss
Jumbled with a lightness
Of being cut loose -
Is this new trajectory a sudden straight line?
Where will it lead?
Will a new focal point come into view?
Will its gravity be strong enough?
I find an axis to revolve around and
As I spiral in again –
What am I orbiting?
I settle into its gravitational pull
And revolve around
Myself, my own Home.

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Amazing Stories: Review - Come Late to the Love of Birds

My most recent review of SF poetry is up on Amazing Stories! You can find it here. This time I take an in depth look at a beautiful collection of poetry by Sandra Kasturi - "Come Late to the Love of Birds".

Here's a preview:

I first became aware of Kasturi when I joined the SFPA and began receiving her posts via the groups Yahoo email list. I have seen several of the poems contained in the collection up for review today in various places on the web. Recently, they hosted a Shitty Poetry column as part of April’s National Poetry Month.

Come Late to the Love of Birds is a sizable collection – 41 poems gathered into 4 sections (well, one is an additional sort of prologue and another an epilogue): “Hieroglyphs of Wind”, “Cannibals of Love”, “False Fossils” and “The Sorcerer at the Door”. Most of these poems can’t be considered SF Poetry, but most of them do have a sort of fantastical element, so that one could safely say it has a speculative nature. And in fact, it had been nominated for the first annual Elgin Award, which is a new award to be bestowed upon the best poetry collection (in chapbook and full-length categories) published in a given year (in this case 2012). It will be awarded at the same time as the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award – at WorldCon in Texas this fall. But I digress – Kasturi dedicates the book to 3 people, Ray Bradbury, Neil Armstrong and Erik Stewart (who I’m assuming is a person close to the author) who all flew in their own fashion, and several of the poems are dedicated to various influential SF writers, which, at the very least, demonstrates Kasturi’s pedigree.

Keep reading!


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