Long Poems of Merit from the 2020 Rhysling Award Anthology

Note: The poets appear here, alphabetically as they do in the anthology. A summation follows. To read last year’s commentary, go here. To read this year's short poemdiscussion, click here.

Alexandria Baisden’s “The Scarecrow’s Lover” [Abyss & Apex] is a moving love-story/tragedy between a scarecrow and some strange plant that crawls up its pole. It is composed of sunflowers, strawberries, ivy, etc. If the poem could have explained or kept it to one, and if it had shortened itself, this would have ranked higher, possibly my favorite. Also, I’m not sure the special typographical displays added substantially, but it’s worth checking out. (See the Inverarity poem below for the same problem, which could have made it a contender as well.)

F. J. Bergmann is represented by three dark, brooding poems—all unusually described, the best being “Maculation” [Spectral Realms]—a kind of Lovecraftian starship horror with the gradual decay of the senses toward a greater horror. It opens:

What I missed most were splotches

of color and shade: irregular clouds

above and around me

Frank Coffman missed his calling in “The Scroll of Thoth” [The Coven’s Hornbook and Other

Poems]. The set up surrounding the poem is nothing short of a Borgesian wonder. The poem itself ponders and pales in comparison. Frank, if you’re out there, please (re)read Jorge Luis Borges and see if he inspires.

While the speculation didn’t sell me on Deborah L. Davitt’s “Children of the Trees” [Polu Texni: A Magazine of Many Arts] the structure and close suggest she is getting close, and may be a poet to keep an eye out for.

Emma J. Gibbon renders “Consumption” [Eye to the Telescope] quite viscerally and sadly. Is this verse the best form for her words? I’m less sure. Still, it’s got quite a bite.

“The Woman Who Talks to Her Dog at the Beach” by Geoff Inverarity [Geist] has some wonderful shifts in surprise. It begins with a woman who asks the dog typical questions an owner might ask, without expecting an answer. However, we are given answers, and the dog seems astute, contemplative to the point of brooding about their greater implications, which is lovely. However, there are problems. Who is relating the story? Definitely not the owner [labeled as “The Woman”] and not the dog as it starts outside the dog and goes inside the dog’s thoughts (how? god-like omniscience? the poet?) and back outside the dog (commenting on “the simple love of dogs,” which no longer seems so simple). Who is our narrator and how is he privileged to get his information? How does the dog go from simple [typical happy-go-lucky dog actions, no brooding] to deep [inside his head] to simple again [by some unnamed speaker]? This might have been a wonderful poem had the poet considered these questions and perhaps become a greater poem at having arrived at an unusual conclusion. (See the Baisden poem above for the same problem, which could have made it a contender as well.)

The best image lines from Herb Kauderer’s “Green Sky” [Influence of the Moon]:

human shellfish

invaded the moon,

skittering around

in personal metal houses

like vacuum trilobites

It treads some profound ground but would likely have been more successful at a much shorter length.

Marsheila Rockwell,’s “Stormbound” [Polu Texni: A Magazine of Many Arts] might have converted me to its revelations if it hadn’t felt familiar.

Cynthia So’s “If Love is Real, So Are Fairies” [Uncanny] tantalizes with a couple of nice images well phrased:

working her powdery

magic ....

a shiver

elicited by her microscopic fingers

whispering across the back of my neck.

D. A. Xiaolin Spires penned my favorite ten line last year. This year’s Rhylsing nominee, “tetrahedral edifices of a sticky rice realm” [Mithila Review]—as the title suggests—is an imaginative and evocative work, but a bit too on the nose and, paradoxically, too dream logicked:

light

shocks jangling my jade bangles

i smell the pungent odor of

temple incense and feel

a thousand eyes pressing against

my forehead...

i blink away the doubt, swallow my reservations and

proceed forth

T. D. Walker has two poems—“Eight Simulations for the Missing” and “For My Daughter, Who Will Ask for a Seismograph Implant on Her Sixteenth Birthday” [Small Waiting Objects]—and

Holly Lyn Walrath has one—“The Mining Town” [2019 SFPA Poetry Contest]—that were I an editor, I’d sit on to mull over. They are more ambitious than most, but am I or am I not sold on these? They are all told in piecemeal with strange and lovely structures. However, are any greater than the sum of their parts?

The first, “Eight Simulations for the Missing”, describes “sightings” (real or imagined—simulated or desired) of a loved one. The second is a mother addressing her daughter via earthquakes sensed on a seismograph.  “The Mining Town” seems to be an old West mining  ghost town, leading us eventually to the devil. In each narrative bit, the sections end with a question, not unlike the quiz at the end of reading to check if you were paying attention although the answers aren’t necessarily found within the texts.

Summation:

From these poems selected, there is no clear winner that stands above the rest. A number of these would have been more successful at shorter lengths. I commented on about two out of every five of the shorter poems, and one out of four of the longer. Note that I read for aesthetics first and then become curious about ratios and statistics, afterwards. Trying to put politics above art strangles both. A few poems were well written, but their speculation didn’t strike me, so I didn’t comment.

At a later date, I’ll need to reread the aforementioned three poems to determine how I felt about them. My gut instinct is to cast my primary vote for F. J. Bergmann’s “Maculation” with T. D. Walker’s “For My Daughter, Who Will Ask for a Seismograph Implant on Her Sixteenth Birthday” as runner-up, but maybe I’d reverse that later, or some other combination.

Of these long poems, my aesthetics didn’t happen to select poems from more than one magazine (two from what I suspect is T.D. Walker’s collection, which I’d be interested in reading) except Polu Texni, which I selected three of their poems before, making them seem to have been a magazine to read and appear in for speculative poetry—at least for getting noticed in the Rhysling awards.

Asimov’s, Dreams & Nightmares, F&SF, Star*Line, Strange Horizons are the usual hot beds for SF poetry, but Apparition Lit, Liminality, Polu Texni,  have all caught my eye of late in addition to a few others I will have to check out. I regularly read Rattle and Poetry, but an SF poem is a rarity. I suspect the genre’s an acquired taste, especially given the special challenges of trying to fulfill two genres at once.

The ratio of female to male in long poems is about 2:1, which is close to my selection of poems to comment on although it appears only females will get my votes for long poems this year. Before I vote though, I will reread the four poems by women (please forgive me if I messed up someone’s gender) and maybe a few other poets who are usually strong, in case I read them too quickly.

Good luck to all the poets nominated.