The Rhysling Anthology Editor and Award Chair, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, and the officers of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association are pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 Rhysling Awards. The organization was founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in science-fiction poetry. This year, there is a 3-way tie for Third Place in the Short Poem category.
The Science Fiction Poetry Association offers annual awards for speculative poetry:
The Rhysling Awards recognize individual poems.
The Dwarf Star Awards are given for short-short poems.
The Elgin Awards are presented for genre poetry books and chapbooks.
Each year, the SFPA publishes the Rhysling Anthology, comprised of works nominated by its international membership for the Best Poems of the Year. The Rhyslings were first established in 1978, named for the blind poet Rhysling in Robert A. Heinlein’s short story “The Green Hills of Earth.” Rhysling’s skills were said to rival Rudyard Kipling’s. In real life, Apollo 15 astronauts named a crater near their landing site “Rhysling,” which has since become its official name.
Winning works are regularly reprinted in the Nebula Awards Anthology from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Rhysling Awards are considered in the speculative literature field to be the poetry equivalent of the awards given for prose— achievement awards given to poets by the writing peers of their own field of literature.
The Rhysling Awards will be formally presented at DiversiCon, in St. Paul (Bandana Square Best Western) by SFPA President, Bryan Thao Worra and other members of the SFPA executive committee. All members are welcome to attend the ceremony.
Short Poem
1st: “George Tecumseh Sherman’s Ghosts”
Marge Simon • Silver Blade 32
2nd: “Build a Rocketship Contest: Alternative
Class A Instructions and Suggestions”
Wendy Rathbone • Asimov’s SF January
3rd (tie):
“Godzilla vs. King Kong”
James S. Dorr • Dreams and Nightmares 103
“Richard Feynman’s Commute”
Jon Wesick • The Were-Traveler Dec. 21
“The Box of Dust and Monsters”
Beth Davis Cato • Devilfish Review 17
Long Poem
1st : “Rose Child”
Theodora Goss • Uncanny 13
2nd: “The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner”
Adam Bolivar • Spectral Realms 5
3rd: “Not Like This”
Mary Soon Lee • Apex Magazine Aug. 4
The SFPA was founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in speculative poetry and is an international literary organization. It produces two journals and confers three annual awards in speculative literature. You can visit them online at www.sfpoetry.com
SPECPO 
Congrats to all the winners! How exciting!
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