edited by Liz Bennefeld
Big fan of Halloween poetry? Then dress up in costume for your next poetry reading— |
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"Pumping Up the Local Economy" appeared in Star*Line. David Kopaska-Merkel describes rocks for the State of Alabama, and publishes Dreams & Nightmares magazine, now in its 25th year. He won the Rhysling award for best long poem (2006) for a collaboration with Kendall Evans. Their latest collaboration, The Tin Men, was published by Sam's Dot this year. ~ "Wicked Karnival: A Tribute to Tod Browning, Jr." Tod Browning, Jr. directed such films as Freaks and the original 1931 b&w Dracula with Bela Lugosi. This poem was first published in The Wicked Karnival #4: Monster Mayhem — Summer 2005. Read by the author and accompanied by Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26. More on Stephen M. Wilson: speceditor666.livejournal.com ~ "A House with No Windows" First appeared in Vampyr Verse (Popcorn Press, 2009). More Bergmanesque details manifest at fibitz.com ~ "The Head" "The Head" was published in his 2011 poetry collection, Shroud of Night, from Dark Regions Press. More about G. O. Clark's work at my.att.net/p/PWP-goclark ~ "Sentient Shadows Rise" This poem was written and recorded for the 2011 Halloween Poetry Reading page. More of David's poetry can be found in issue #2 of Inkscrawl, and in upcoming editions of Star*Line, Scifaikuest, Ideomancer, and many others. His horror film Clown, which he co-wrote with the writer/director of Leprechaun and sold to Amicus Entertainment, is currently in preproduction (though it has been for some time, and if you mention it he'll only get cross). If you'd like to see some of the science fiction television he's written, he's been told there are pirated copies for sale on E-Bay, though he can only speak to the quality of the writing. ~ "A Night at Hotel Sedgewick" irv is a full-time web developer/researcher and perpetual bad influence on his grandchildren. He lives with his wife near the frozen shores of Lake Ontario and writes science fiction and fantasy poetry in what passes for his spare time, usually late at night when he should be in bed so he'll be awake at that big meeting in the morning. "A Night at Hotel Sedgewick" was originally published in the November 2008 issue of Whispering Spirits. ~ "Not Alone" "Not Alone," which first appeared in Dreams & Nightmares (2008), was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and his unique approach to science. Ann K. Schwader is a Rhysling Award winner (2010, for her science poem "To Theia"), and a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for her dark SF poetry collection Wild Hunt of the Stars (Sam's Dot, 2010). Learn more about her work at home.earthlink.net/~schwader/. Twisted in Dream, Ann's most recent collection of dark verse, is available from Hippocampus Press. ~ "The Cosmic Web" "The Cosmic Web" was written for the 2011 SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading Page. David Lee Summers works at Kitt Peak National Observatory, and "The Cosmic Web" was inspired by a week at work where David encountered snakes, spiders, and strange things falling from the sky. In addition to his work in astronomy, David serves as the Vice President of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. He's also the editor of Tales of the Talisman magazine and the author of seven novels and over one hundred published short stories and poems. You can learn more about the magazine at Tales of the Talisman, and David shares his latest writing news at davidleesummers.wordpress.com. ~ "All Creatures Great and Small" Poetry appearances this year include A Sea of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock (Dark Scribe Press), Mythic Delirium #24, and Dreams and Nightmares #90. Science poems appear in The Open Laboratory 2010: The Best of Science Writing on the Web (Coturnix), and in Elissa's chapbook Poetic Variables: Science Poems for January 2010. In September, Elissa posted 24 climate-change sonnets in 24 hours as part of two global events: Moving Planet and 100 Thousand Poets for Change. For more info and free downloads of her Deviations series, visit home.earthlink.net/~emalcohn/ ~ "Death in a Harlequin Suit" "Death in a Harlequin Suit," a prose poem, first appeared in the Halloween-themed speculative fiction and poetry anthology Jack-o'-Spec: Tales of Halloween and Fantasy, released in September 2011 by Raven Electrick Ink. Jack-o'-Spec is available at major online booksellers including Amazon.com: Jack-o'-Spec [Paperback] ~ "Vision Stalker" "Vision Stalker" was written in the autumn of 1996 and published in Reflections & Visions (A.L. Freeman, editor, WHEEL, Seattle, Wash.: November 1996). With a B.A. in philosophy and English, Elizabeth W. Bennefeld has earned a living variously, as a computer programmer and operator, IT clerk, regional payroll coordinator and, for the past 27 years, as a freelance editor and writer, d.b.a. The Written Word. Her poem “Endings” was nominated for the 2010 Rhysling Award. She has been editor of SFPA's Halloween Poetry Reading page since 2006; she has also served as Website Coder, interim secretary, and Star*Line proof reader. She can be found on the Web at themomentsbetween.wordpress.com ~ "Vicious Trees" Mary A. Turzillo's novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl and Nebula-Award-winning novelette "Mars Is no Place for Children" are recommended reading on the International Space Station. She has been nominated for the Rhysling, the British Science Fiction Association Award ("Eat or Be Eaten, a Love Story"), and the Pushcart (Your Cat & Other Space Aliens, vanZeno). She has recent and forthcoming work in Asimov's, Paper Crow, Analog, New Myths, Strange Horizons, Bull Spec, Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Ladies of Trade Town, Illumen, and Stone Telling, plus an authorized Philip José Farmer sequel story, "The Beast Erect," in The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2 (Meteor Press, 2011). "Vicious Trees" appeared in Goblin Fruit, Autumn 2007. ~ "Waking Beauty" "Waking Beauty" was first published in Cabinet des Fees: A Journal of Fairy Tales, Scheherezade's Bequest, Issue 9, January 2010, at cabinetdesfees.com/2010/waking-beaut/. Catalog librarian by day, Lyn C. A. Gardner has just seen her first poetry collection, Dreaming of Days in Astophel, released by Sam's Dot Publishing. She’s also served as editor at a maritime museum and had over 250 stories, poems, art, and articles published in Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, the Green Knight Press anthologies Legends of the Pendragon and The Doom of Camelot, Challenging Destiny, Sybil's Garage, Talebones, The Leading Edge, and more. Two stories and a poem earned honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling); six poems have been nominated for the Rhysling Award (SFPA). ~ "Secrets" "Secrets," first published in The Third Alternative #6, 1995, was recorded by Rick Wilson. In the recording, Rick is playing Native American desert flute. Kolodji herself plucks a ukulele. Kath Abela Wilson plays a one-stringed Bangladesh ektara, Cambodian rattles, a Persian daf, and a toy xylophone. Deborah P Kolodji is the former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group. Her poems have been published in numerous journals online and off. To learn more, visit dkolodji.livejournal.com. ~ "Renovation" First published in Illumen, Spring, 2011. The poem takes off from the real renovation my husband and I decided to do when I moved into his third-floor condo and the kind of exorcism and renewal it instilled. Kath Abela Wilson is creator and leader of Poets on Site, a poetry performance group based in Pasadena, CA, collaborating with musicians, scientists, artists and dancers. She also hosts the Caltech Red Door Poetry Club. She's published in Astropoetica and many other print and online journals, as well as in 30 anthologies published by Poets on Site. "Renovation" was recorded by Rick Wilson who played shakuhachi flute on the recording, accompanied by Deborah P Kolodji on Tibetan cymbals, kitchen tools, and other percussion instruments. ~ Previous Halloween Readings |
October
Sky
Frozen in Time
Sentinel
Trick
or Treat
Vanished
New
Dimension
Trees
Alien
Life II
Mazes
Halloween
Tree
An
OrchidThanks to the SFPA members who have contributed their poetry and art to this page. All recordings and images are copyrighted by their respective authors and used by permission.
