The 2022 Rhysling Awards
| Short Poem Category
First Place Second Place Third Place Honorable Mentions “dry land” • Maria Zoccola • Strange Horizons, 7 June “Exquisite” • Lee Murray• Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, collab. antho. (Yuriko Publishing) |
 |
Long Poem Category
First Place Second Place Third Place Honorable Mentions “Medusa Gets a Haircut” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 38 |
114 members voted
Winner Biographies and Photos
The 2022 Rhysling Anthology:
The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2021
 |
|
Editor and Rhysling Chairs: $17.95 + $5 U.S. shipping;
e-mail the treasurer for postage costs on multiple copies and/or international shipping. $4 .pdf. Payable by PayPal to
SFPATreasurer@gmail.com |
2022 Rhysling Chairs
| F. J. Bergmann is the poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com) and freelances as a copy editor and book designer. She lives in Wisconsin and imagines tragedies on or near exoplanets. Her work has appeared in Asimov’s SF, Analog, Polu Texni, Spectral Realms, Vastarien, and elsewhere. While lacking academic literary qualifications, she is kind to those so encumbered. She used to work with horses. She thinks imagination can compensate for anything. |  |
|
 |
||
| Brian U. Garrison has been a member of the SFPA since 2012. His poetry has waited at a bus stop in Montpelier, Vermont, popped out of a vending machine in Boston, Massachusetts, traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama (among other cities) aboard Asimov's Science Fiction, and orbited Mars aboard NASA's MAVEN mission. Fifty of his poems are squeezed into his chapbook New Yesterdays, New Tomorrows. Look for him in Portland, Oregon where you might catch him eating vegan donuts. |  |
113 members nominated.
| Short Poems (103 poems) |
| “The Butterfly Affect” • Linda D. Addison • Were Tales: A Shapeshifter Anthology, eds. S. D. Vasallo & Steven M. Long (Brigids Gate Press) |
| “The Conqueror Worm(Hole)” • Linda D. Addison • The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October |
| “Hallucinations” • Amirah al Wassif • Silver Blade 51 |
| “Forbidden Haibun: Expand” • Francis W. Alexander • Scifaikuest, February 1 |
| “The Forbidden Path to Forgetting” • Daniel Ausema • Fantasy Magazine 71 |
| “Tons of Liquid Oxygen Buckle Too Late Under Strain” • Eugen Bacon • Saving Shadows (NewCon Press) |
| “Curiosity Kills” • Alison Bainbridge • The Minison Zine 12 |
| “The Other Crusoe” • David Barber • The Flying Saucer Poetry Review 1 |
| “What The Time Travellers Stole” • L. X. Beckett • Uncanny 38 |
| “Radiance” • F. J. Bergmann • Dreams and Nightmares 118 |
| “Even Surrounded by Light, She Disappears” • Lisa Creech Bledsoe • Anti-Heroin Chic 23 |
| “In the Library Annex” • Bruce Boston • Asimov’s SF, September/October |
| “SustainaCrock” • Rhian Bowley • Triangulation: Habitats |
| “Alice” • Anna Cates • Drifting Sands 11 |
| “Little Black Box” • Anna Cates • Liquid Imagination 49 |
| “Field Trip to See the Mermaid” • Beth Cato • Mermaids Monthly, November |
| “How to Find Yourself Again” • Beth Cato • Fantasy Magazine 69 |
| “Dragonslayer” • Priya Chand • Fantasy Magazine 65 |
| “Musée Dupuytren, Paris” • Carolyn Clink • Polar Starlight 2 |
| “Watchmaker” • Carolyn Clink • Polar Starlight 2 |
| “Sport on Mars” • PS Cottier • The Crow, December |
| “As We Were Saying Goodnight” • Henry Crawford • Rattle, Poets Respond October 31 |
| “Psychopomp” • M. J. Cunniff • The Deadlands 1 |
| “The Conglomerant” • David Davies • Granfalloon, Fall |
| “Gris-gris” • Deborah L. Davitt • Selene Quarterly 4:1 |
| “Snails” • Denise Dumars • Spectrum 28 |
| “the empires of old” • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Dissident Voice, December 19 |
| “Witch Flesh” • Stephanie Ellis • Visual Verse 9:1 |
| “Chernobyl Litany” • Gemma Files • The Deadlands 3 |
| “Inheritance” • Geneve Flynn • Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, collab. antho. (Yuriko Publishing) |
| “Warrior over Washington” • Adam Ford • Star*Line 44.1 |
| “Sylvan Succubus” • Joshua Gage • Star*Line 44.1 |
| “No More Prying Eyes” • Maxwell I. Gold • Shadow Atlas, eds. Carina Bissett, Hillary Dodge & Joshua Viola (Hex Publishers) |
| “In Memory Yet Green” • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 44.4 |
| “Aswang Mango: Santiago’s Fantasia” • Vince Gotera • MiGoZine, Summer |
| “Blood Spells” • Neile Graham • Polar Starlight 1 |
| “find me” • féi hernandez • Nombono, ed. Akua Lezli Hope (Sundress Publications) |
“Unexpected Malfunction in the Xenobiology Monitoring System at Arcturus-IV, or Sonnet #1” • Jordan Hirsch • Utopia Science Fiction, December |
| “Prologue: The Late Heavy Bombardment” • Ada Hoffmann • Million-Year Elegies |
| “Stratospherics 2” • Akua Lezli Hope • Eccentric Orbits vol. 2, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing) |
| “Michelangelo Carves David into Medusa” • Ellie Howard • beestung 9 |
| “The Problem with the Bottling of Troublesome Spirits” • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • The Lost Librarian’s Grave, ed. Ann Wycoff (Redwood Press) |
| “Home’s Threnody” • Olaitan Humble • FIYAH 19 |
| “Fragment of an Elegy” • Clay Franklin Johnson • A Ride Through Faerie & Other Poems (Gothic Keats Press) |
| “Interrupted Journey” • Tim Jones • Up Flynn Road, across Cook Strait, through the Magellanic Cloud, ed. Norman P. Franke (Orplid Press) |
| “In the Future We Will Live In Broken Houses” • Sandra Kasturi • Triangulation: Habitats |
| “Failed Space Colonists” Herb Kauderer • Asimov’s SF, July/August |
| “Little Red Loves Her Grandma” • Pankaj Khemka • Moon Tide Press, March 2021 |
| “Stress Level Test” • Pankaj Khemka • Star*Line 44.2 |
| “Ingenuity” • Deborah P Kolodji • Modern Haiku 52:3 |
| “Lights Over the Midnight Desert” • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • Eye to the Telescope 40 |
| “Swipples” • Craig Kurtz • Eye to the Telescope 39 |
| “Gravity (some things that fly)” • Geoffrey A. Landis • Space & Time Magazine 140 |
| “Confessions of a Spaceport AI” • Mary Soon Lee • Uncanny 43 |
| “Daedalus’s Daughter” • Mary Soon Lee • Star*Line 44.4 |
| “Sea Gods” • Mary Soon Lee • Eye to the Telescope 42 |
| “House Gravity Physics” • Sandra J. Lindow • Triangulation: Habitats |
| “What the Weed Whip Wanted” • Sandra J. Lindow • Dreams and Nightmares 119 |
| “Anthony of Egypt, Professional Recluse and Patron Saint of Boneyards” • LindaAnn LoSchiavo • Drifting Sands Haibun 10 |
| “Ode” • P. H. Low • Strange Horizons, 30 August |
| “shedding photons” • Richard Magahiz • Dreams and Nightmares 119 |
| “Extrasolar Faeryland” • Avra Margariti • Utopia Science Fiction, June |
| “When the Martian Wind Blows” • Lauren McBride • Scifaikuest, August |
| “A Monstrous Life Well Lived” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Girls Who Love Monsters, collaborative anthology |
| “Thanks to Stanislav Petrov for Fairytales About Birds” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Utopia Science Fiction, February |
| “Under a Pale Moon” • Mark Meyer • White Enso day 58 |
| “our translucent bodies” • Devin Miller • Mermaids Monthly 6 |
| “Flying Horses” • Debasish Mishra • Spaceports & Spidersilk, June |
| “Ways of the Multiverse” • Vincent Miskell • The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December |
| “In Corfu” • Irina Moga • The Flying Saucer Poetry Review 1 |
| “Crossroads” • Tiffany Morris • Nightmare 110 |
| “There can only be one Soul Princess” • Michelle Muenzler • Penumbric 5:2 |
| “Exquisite” • Lee Murray• Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, collab. antho. (Yuriko Publishing) |
| “Orchid Moon” • Lee Murray• Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, collab. antho. (Yuriko Publishing) |
| “Dystopia” • Aminath Neena • Eccentric Orbits vol. 2, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing) |
| “A Martian Contemplates Earthrise” • KB Nelson • Polar Starlight 1 |
| “Dracula Among the Ruins” • Mari Ness • Kaleidotrope, July |
| “Futuristic Funerals” • Dante Novario • Jersey Devil Press 112 |
| “Sonnet of the South American Sphinx” • Katherine Quevedo • Honeyguide Literary Magazine 2 |
| “Heart Tree” • John Reinhart • Taproot Magazine 43 |
| “How Date Nights Bring You Ever Closer (A Forbidden Haibun)” • Terrie Leigh Relf • HWA Poetry Showcase VIII, ed. Stephanie M. Wytovich |
| “our stitching and unstitching” • Hester J. Rook • Liminality 28 |
| “One of Us” • Louis Rosenberg • One of Us (Outland Publishing) |
| “Post Massacre Psyche Evaluation” • Abu Bakr Sadiq • Uncanny 43 |
| “Extremophile” • Lauren Scharhag • Anvil Tongue Books, February |
| “The Galaxies Have Reversed Their Course and Are Hurtling Towards One Another” • Andrea Schlecht • Polar Starlight 3 |
| “Cherry Blossoms (On Mourning a Distant Mother)” • E. F. Schraeder • HWA Poetry Showcase VIII, ed. Stephanie M. Wytovich |
| “Sepulcher of Saints” • Ann K. Schwader • Unquiet Stars (Weird House Press) |
| “A Banquet of Sugar & Tea” • Marge Simon • Silver Blade 50 |
| “Graffiti Goddess” • Noel Sloboda • Abyss & Apex 79 |
| “The Frozen North” • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff • Polar Starlight 4 |
| “Cosmic Cooking” • Gretchen Tessmer • Kaleidotrope, Autumn |
| “Summer Encroaching, Winter Yielding” • Jean-Louis Trudel • Little Blue Marble, December 24 |
| “Dragonrider” • Marie Vibbert • Simultaneous Times 20 |
| “Princess Cat Robot Space Pirate” • Marie Vibbert • Utopia Science Fiction 2:4 |
| “Pa and the Devil” • Susan E. Wagner • Apehelion 267 |
| “The Reality of Ghosts” • Yilin Wang • Fantasy Magazine 70 |
| “Wardrobe Malfunction” • Kyla Lee Ward • Infectious Hope: Poems of Hope & Resilience from the Pandemic, ed. Sylvia Canton Rondon (IFGW Publishing Australia) |
| “Reasons to Leave the Path” • Jacqueline West • Star*Line 44.1 |
| [deep space Elvis] • Greer Woodward • Star*Line 44.3 |
| “The Tiny Goblin” • Ann Wuehler • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter |
| “Adam-Ondi-Ahman” • Audrey Zheng • Strange Horizons, 5 July |
| “dry land” • Maria Zoccola • Strange Horizons, 7 June |
| Long Poems (78 poems) |
| “Astynome, After” • Mike Allen • The Deadlands 2 |
| “Dispelling the Arcana” • Mike Allen • Roanoke Rambler, October 6 |
| “Cinnabar” • Colleen Anderson • Shadow Atlas, eds. Carina Bissett, Hillary Dodge & Joshua Viola (Hex Publishers) |
| “Topsy Turvy” • Colleen Anderson • Shelter of Daylight, Summer |
| “they came to new mexico” • Arachelle • Eye to the Telescope 41 |
| “Spell 17” • Tristan Beiter • Mirror Dance, Spring |
| “The Bog Witch’s Brew” • R. Jean Bell • New Myths 54 |
| “The Catfish Sisters” • Lisa M. Bradley • Mermaids Monthly 12 |
| “The Mariner and the Sacred Foal” • Catherine Brogdon • Eccentric Orbits vol. 2, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing) |
| “The Revenge of Henrietta Lacks” • Cecilia Caballero • Star*Line 44.3 |
| “Dinner at Wolf’s” • Anna Cates • Otoliths, June 9 |
| “The Bookstore” • Beth Cato • New Myths 56/57 |
| “Follow the Meandering Path” • Beth Cato • Abyss & Apex 80 |
| “Echidna” • Donyae Coles • Fantasy Magazine, June |
| “Galaxy’s Heir to Forgotten Dreams” • Christopher Collingwood • Carmina Magazine, September |
| “Year’s Walk” • Scott J. Couturier • Eternal Haunted Summer, Winter |
| “Liminality in the Seafoam” • Koji A. Dae • Eye to the Telescope 42 |
| “Among the Scythians” • Deborah L. Davitt • Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 49 |
| “Feeding the Dead” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, January 10 |
| “Selachimorphosis” • Deborah L. Davitt • Eye to the Telescope 42 |
| “Totems” • Deborah L. Davitt • Polu Texni, May 2 |
| “When the Girls Begin to Fall” • Geneve Flynn • Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, collab. antho. (Yuriko Publishing) |
| “Mermaid as Lover: A Definition” • Joshua Gage • Dream of Rust and Glass |
| “Laughter out of the Sea” • Maxwell I. Gold • Spectral Realms 15 |
| “Medusa Gets a Haircut” • Theodora Goss • Uncanny 38 |
| “Babaylan” • Vince Gotera • Muddy River Poetry Review, Fall |
| “Obsidian Blade” • Scott E. Green & Herb Kauderer • Beneath the Misty Surface, eds. Rachel Crawford, Shannon Kauderer, Andy Lee & Lizette Strait |
| “Nine Lives” • Brittany Hause • Kaleidotrope, Autumn |
| “Loving Venus” • Jamal Hodge • Nombono, ed. Akua Lezli Hope (Sundress Publications) |
| “Dream Logic” • Ada Hoffmann • Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin, eds. R. B. Lemberg & Lisa M. Bradley (Aqueduct Press) |
| “Epilogue: Memento Mori” • Ada Hoffmann • Million-Year Elegies |
| “Child Price” • Akua Lezli Hope • Gramarye 20 |
| “The Queen of the Night” • Clay Franklin Johnson • Chlorophobia, ed. A. R. Ward (Ghost Orchid Press) |
| “Space Traveler” • John Philip Johnson • Altered Reality Magazine, October 8 |
| “Specializing in the Prehistory of Whales” • Sandra Kasturi • The New Quarterly 160 |
| “The Last Dragon” • Herb Kauderer • Altered Reality Magazine, December 28 |
| “Scone Dragon” • Herb Kauderer • Altered Reality Magazine, December 28 |
| “Dark Phoenix” • Luke Kernan • The Silent World in Her Vase 9 |
| “In the Male Utopia” • Geoffrey A. Landis • Dreams and Nightmares 119 |
| “The Corvid-Human Alliance” • Gerri Leen • Liquid Imagination 48 |
| “Tributes” • Gerri Leen • Polu Texni, 27 June |
| “What of Me, Goose Girl? (Or Hard Questions from The Horse Still on the Wall)” • Gerri Leen • Dreams and Nightmares 119 |
| “The House of Ill Waters” • R. B. Lemberg • The Deadlands 2 |
| “Wendigo” • Trevor Livingston • Eye to the Telescope 40 |
| “Biting Sarcasm” • Lori R. Lopez • Spectral Realms 14 |
| “Searching for the Cottingley Fairies” • Kim Malinowski • The Metaworker, September 17 |
| “The Time Travel Tourism Bureau” • Chris Marchello • Rattle 71 |
| “Amphitrite Finds a Confidante” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Water: Selkies, Sirens, & Sea Monsters, ed. Rhonda Parrish (Tyche Books) |
| “Field Notes, Found Later” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Chrome Baby 98 |
| “How The Rose Princes Came to Life” • Elizabeth R. McClellan • Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 98 |
| “The Wild Bunch” • Kate Meyer-Currey • Liquid Imagination 49 |
| “Becoming” • Miguel O. Mitchell • Eye to the Telescope 42 |
| “A Descendant’s Gift” • Miguel O. Mitchell • Dreams and Nightmares 117 |
| “Ghost Town” • Sarah Fawn Montgomery • Split Lip Magazine, October 14 (permission refused) |
| “Nyankopoxyican Breath of Fresh Air” • Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss • Nombono, ed. Akua Lezli Hope (Sundress Publications) |
| “Interview with a Goddess” • Lee Murray • Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, collab. antho. (Yuriko Publishing) |
| “Deep Diving” • Kurt Newton • Eye to the Telescope 42 |
| “Tiny House” • Kurt Newton • Triangulation: Habitats |
| “Hastur Asks for Donald Glover's Autograph” • Brandon O’Brien • Can You Sign My Tentacle? (Interstellar Flight Press) |
| “Hoop Dance” • Bryant O’Hara • The Ghettobirds (Frayed Edge Press) |
| “Haddonfield, New Jersey, 1980” • Cindy O’Quinn • Attack from the ’80s, ed. Eugene Johnson (Raw Dog Screaming Press) |
| “The Wreck of the Vigilance” • Michael H. Payne • Silver Blade 49 |
| “Inescapable Personality Disorders of Supernatural Creatures” • P. Aaron Potter • Star*Line 44.3 |
| “Erasing Myself from the Narrative” • Marsheila Rockwell • The Lorelei Signal, October |
| “Reservation Fairy Tales 101—Final Exam” • Marsheila Rockwell • Augur Magazine 4:1 |
| “Priestess” • Lauren Scharhag • Lothlorien Poetry Journal, February |
| “The Captain Flies” • Avi Silver • Uncanny 42 |
| “Alexander’s Babylon” • Marge Simon & Mary Turzillo • Victims (Weasel Press) |
| “Inseparable” • Hamant Singh • Illumen, Summer |
| “The Third Law” • Justin T. O’Conor Sloane • The Flying Saucer Poetry Review 1 |
| “Snow Child” • Christina Sng • Ladies of Horror Flash Project |
| “Whales” • Christina Sng • Eye to the Telescope 42 |
| “Pepie of Lake Pepin” • Richard Stevenson • Polar Starlight 3 |
| “Woman in Black, Girl in Pink” • Richard Stevenson • The Flying Saucer Poetry Review 1 |
| “Death Opus” • Romie Stott • The Deadlands 1 |
| “The Retirement of Mechagirl” • Cathrynne M. Valente • Patreon, August |
| “Dispatch from a Ruin in Mitla, the Town of Souls” • Morgan L. Ventura • Strange Horizons, 12 April |
| “Toward Solstice Station” • Steven Withrow & Frank Coffman • The Exorcised Lyric (Mind’s Eye Publications) |
| Nominations per publication (92 publications): | ||
| 2 | Abyss & Apex | |
| 3 | Altered Reality Magazine | |
| 1 | Anti-Heroin Chic | |
| 1 | Anvil Tongue Books | |
| 1 | Aphelion | |
| 1 | Aqueduct Press | |
| 2 | |
Asimov’s Science Fiction |
| 1 | Augur Magazine | |
| 1 | |
beestung |
| 1 | Brigids Gate Press | |
| 1 | Carmina Magazine | |
| 1 | Chrome Baby | |
| 1 | The Crow | |
| 5 | The Deadlands | |
| 3 | Dimensionfold Publishing | |
| 1 | Dissident Voice | |
| 1 | Dream of Rust and Glass | |
| 6 | Dreams and Nightmares | |
| 1 | Drifting Sands Haibun | |
| 2 | Eternal Haunted Summer | |
| 10 | Eye to the Telescope | |
| 5 | Fantasy Magazine | |
| 1 | FIYAH | |
| 4 | The Flying Saucer Poetry Review | |
| 1 | Frayed Edge Press | |
| 1 | Ghost Orchid Press | |
| 1 | Girls Who Love Monsters, collaborative anthology | |
| 1 | Gothic Keats Press | |
| 1 | Granfalloon | |
| 2 | Heroic Fantasy Quarterly | |
| 2 | Hex Publishers | |
| 2 | HWA Poetry Showcase VIII, ed. Stephanie M. Wytovich | |
| 1 | Honeyguide Literary Magazine | |
| 1 | IFGW Publishing Australia | |
| 1 | Illumen | |
| 1 | Interstellar Flight Press | |
| 1 | Jersey Devil Press | |
| 3 | Kaleidotrope | |
| 1 | Ladies of Horror Flash Project | |
| 1 | Liminality | |
| 3 | Liquid Imagination | |
| 1 | Little Blue Marble | |
| 1 | The Lorelei Signal | |
| 1 | Lothlorien Poetry Journal | |
| 2 | The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction | |
| 3 | Mermaids Monthly | |
| 1 | The Metaworker | |
| 1 | MiGoZine | |
| 1 | Mind’s Eye Publications | |
| 1 | The Minison Zine | |
| 1 | Modern Haiku | |
| 1 | Moon Tide Press | |
| 1 | Muddy River Poetry Review | |
| 1 | NewCon Press | |
| 2 | New Myths | |
| 1 | The New Quarterly | |
| 1 | Nightmare | |
| 1 | Orplid Press | |
| 1 | Otoliths | |
| 1 | Outland Publishing | |
| 1 | Patreon | |
| 1 | Penumbric | |
| 7 | Polar Starlight | |
| 3 | Polu Texni | |
| 2 | Rattle | |
| 1 | Raw Dog Screaming Press | |
| 1 | Redwood Press | |
| 1 | Roanoke Rambler | |
| 2 | Scifaikuest | |
| 1 | Selene Quarterly | |
| 1 | Shelter of Daylight | |
| 3 | Silver Blade | |
| 1 | Simultaneous Times | |
| 1 | Spaceports & Spidersilk | |
| 1 | Space & Time Magazine | |
| 2 | Spectral Realms | |
| 1 | Spectrum | |
| 1 | Split Lip Magazine | |
| 9 | Star*Line | |
| 4 | Strange Horizons | |
| 3 | Sundress Publications | |
| 1 | Taproot Magazine | |
| 4 | Triangulation | |
| 1 | Tyche Books | |
| 5 | Uncanny | |
| 4 | Utopia Science Fiction | |
| 1 | Visual Verse | |
| 1 | Weasel Press | |
| 1 | Weird House Press | |
| 1 | Were Tales: A Shapeshifter Anthology | |
| 1 | White Enso | |
| 5 | Yuriko Publishing | |
