Eye to the Telescope Call for Robots

Eye to the Telescope is the quarterly online journal publishing science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and other speculative poetry under the auspices of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Recent themes have included Ghosts, Family, Mythopoesis, Music and more.

Now approaching its 23rd issue, guest editor Brian Garrison has issued a call for Robots!

Robots and computers have served to make our lives both infinitely easier and infinitely more complex. They are created by humans, and yet they mystify us. We can’t quite decide whether we should classify robots alongside shards of amethyst silent underground, twisting vines of morning glory climbing toward the sun, mosquitoes buzzing in search of blood, or researchers interpreting their experimental data. Maybe they belong in a category of their own. 

Literature has explored doomsday scenarios of machine warfare; speculated about the key ingredients of intelligence, emotion, and consciousness as robots enter our workplaces, game rooms, bedrooms, etc.; showed us how hackers and other cyberpunks might live in an increasingly computerized society; and otherwise done what literature is supposed to do—make things up. For this issue of Eye to the Telescope, it is your opportunity to tell everyone about your hopes or fears about life among machines. Let us place your poetry here, to be faithfully communicated to the world through humanity's largest electronic undertaking so far, the internet. Tell us: where are we going, where have we been?

The deadline to submit is December 15th! We're looking forward to seeing all of the inventive takes you can present us for this next issue! Pay is 3 cents/word up to $25, rounded up to the nearest dollar, with a minimum of a $3 payment.

Our guest editor Brian Garrison is a great member and volunteer of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. I'm always delighted by his work. He lives in Portland, OR, where he writes poetry, runs errands for the silly poetry journal, Parody, and sometimes does other stuff too. parodypoetry.com

And here's me, doing research for the upcoming issue:

Good luck and keep inspired!