Rhysling time, again

Again this year, I submitted only one group of poems for publication, one of which was published. Once again, the theme is irreparable loss. How do we deal with loss? Grief strikes so deeply, it feels as though the pain would kill, should one weaken in the face of it.

Outward Voyage

Is he downstairs, again,
fallen asleep in his chair?
Or did we bury him, years ago,
under Terra’s summer sun,
and I’ve forgotten once more
during the long, cold night?

— Elizabeth W. Bennefeld
Star*Line 34.3, p. 24, July–September 2011

One can’t refuse to feel in the hope of diminishing the grief of future loss. And grieving now for what may not come to pass is foolish.

The significant moments will come or not, and they will be lived…or not.

SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading

The 2011 Science Fiction Poetry Association’s sixth annual Halloween Poetry Reading is online in what is most likely its final form. Near the bottom of the page are links to the readings for 2006 through 2010. This year I did not write a new poem, but instead contributed a recording of “Vision Stalker” to the online reading. It’s rather a “signature” poem that I wrote in 1996–another period of change in my life.

SFPA members reading their own spooky poetry include

  1. “Pumping Up the Local Economy” by David Kopaska-Merkel
  2. “Wicked Karnival: A Tribute to Tod Browning, Jr.” by Stephen M. Wilson
  3. “A House with No Windows” by F.J. Bergmann
  4. “The Head” by G. O. Clark
  5. “Sentient Shadows Rise” by David Glen Larson
  6. “A Night at Hotel Sedgewick” by irving
  7. “Not Alone” by Ann K. Schwader
  8. “The Cosmic Web” by David Lee Summers
  9. “All Creatures Great and Small” by Elissa Malcohn
  10. “Death in a Harlequin Suit” by Karen A. Romanko
  11. “Vision Stalker” by Elizabeth W. Bennefeld
  12. “Vicious Trees” by Mary A. Turzillo
  13. “Waking Beauty” by Lyn C. A. Gardner
  14. “Secrets” by Deborah P Kolodji
  15. “Renovation” by Kath Abela Wilson

In addition to my artwork, there are pictures by Geoffrey Landis and Kath Abela Wilson. 

“Outward Voyage” published in Star*Line

One of my poems has been published in the most recent Star*Line: Journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. It’s “Outward Voyage,” another of my snapshot poems; this one is a brief moment of awareness, “lostness,” on the first generation ship to flee the devastation of Terra. In my mind, it pairs with “Endings,” which was published in the July/August 2009 issue of Star*Line.

I’ve actually been dreaming about this “world” for many decades, but from a different perspective: growing up in weightlessness, out in space, and then living in an improvised shelter on a stairway landing, the stairs and walkways clinging for the most part to the sides of a gigantic sphere whose lights switch on a regular cycle from full daylight to soft, dim lighting and back. Within the past 10 year, I believe, I read a book that described a similar environment, although it was just part of a permanent settlement; I do not recall the name of the book or of the boy who ended up there by mistake. (I’m thinking that perhaps the author’s first name was Robert and that perhaps he wrote a number of YA SF books.) It is startling when I see a place that I’ve been in, described by an author in a book I’m reading for the first time. As though the places of my dreams do have an independent existence.

 

2011 SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading Online

"Frozen in Time"

"Frozen in Time" © 2003-12-07

The 2011 Halloween Poetry Reading is now online at the Science Fiction Poetry Association Website: http://www.sfpoetry.com/halloween.html (with links to previous editions, 2006-2010). I (the editor) am expecting some more submissions to arrive over the weekend, but the majority of the readings are in place.

The SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading consists of spooky pictures (mostly by yours truly, this year) and MP3s of SFPA members reading their own poems especially chosen for this time of year. This year, I have chosen one of my old favorites, “Vision Stalker.” I hope you enjoy my poem and many of the others.

 

 

NaNoWriMo 2010 Recap

What with all the goings-on in November, my poetry writing did not go as well as I had hoped. I gave myself an extra day at the end, and so got 30 poems written. However, very few of them are ready for publication as they were written. They’re going to require some serious work, and some of them might not make the cut even then.

Here are a couple of favorites:

I can’t imagine
wanting to be the person
that they thought they knew

Nov. 8, 2010

I always thought that
there would be more time to write…
but they’re not dead, yet!

Nov. 6, 2010

Virtual Halloween Poetry Reading by SFPA Members

The Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Fifth Annual On-Line Halloween Poetry Reading is in progress. As of October 26, 2010, ten SFPA members have provided audio files (MP3, WAV) of themselves reading one of their own poems.

  • "By the Grace of Winter’s Queen," by David Kopaska-Merkel Playing-9250169
  • "A Vampire’s Domain," by David Lee Summers
  • "House 5," by Lyn C. A. Gardner
  • "Country Inn," by Karen A. Romanko
  • "Neighbors," by Elissa Malcohn
  • "The Revolutionary Behind the Tavern," by T.J. McIntyre
  • "Night Falls," by Shelly Bryant
  • "Frost Bitten," by Stephen M. Wilson
  • "Alien Life," by Liz Bennefeld
  • "The Little One" [“Petite”], by Maria Alexander

This is the fifth year that I have coordinated the event, and it’s become one of the highlights of my year. I hope that you will enjoy the poems as much as I have.

Decorating the Halloween Poetry Reading page are spooky pictures provided by myself, Karen A. Romanko, Elissa Malcohn, and Lyn C.A. Gardner.

Thanksgiving

Ever changing, the faces
and the names of people
at the dinner table on
Thanksgiving Day.

New husbands, wives, and children,
and their own families of the heart,
find their way into the folds
of Great-grandma’s quilts
into our lives and homes.

Large quilts, warm
and welcoming…

Always room for more.

Poems Past

Going through my papers, here, I’ve once again come across a notebook with loose sheets of all sorts—poetry from the 60′s and 70′s that I’ve put aside for one reason or another. Some published, long ago, but mostly not. I’ve never been much for submitting poems or short stories. Only essays that were published on-line at Moondance and some in paper publications, and those were much later—within the past 20 years.

I put my name and address at the top of some of the typewritten sheets. An apartment dweller until my marriage in the 90s, the address helps in pinning down when a piece was written and what my circumstances might have been at the time. Some…most of the poems were written in my journal (lately called, thanks to The Artist’s Way, "Morning Pages"). When I came to the end of a journal, I saved the pages with poems and essays, and the makings for the same, and shredded the rest. A habit born of having known too much about the wrong things and the wrong people. Fortunately, my having a "roll-up" memory, none of that remains to burden me.

Anyway, I’ve chosen two of my poems to share in this post, both written on March 13, 1977.


Echoes of Mind

Vision clouded, noise drifts in
to fill my picture of the world
The drinks I’ve had don’t isolate,
but merely shift the focus to the sounds,
less easily avoided than the sights.

If I were sober, now,
I’d shut it out—that senseless murmuring.
But here I sit, inertia-bound
and listen vainly
for the echoes of my mind.


I Do Not Live Alone

I do not live alone.
One by one come memories,
Purged by time,
Existing once again
In the perfection
Of what might have been.