2014 Science Fiction Poetry Contest Winners Announced

Thanks to Joshua Gage, the chair of this year's Science Fiction Poetry Contest and Kenji Liu, this year's guest judge, the Science Fiction Poetry Association announced its winners at their official website, where you can also read the poems in their entirety:

Dwarf Form:
1st Place: Surreal Shopping List by Bruce Boston
2nd Place: Radio Heart: Trace by Margaret Rhee
3rd Place: Balancing the Scales, by Lola Lucas

Honorable Mentions:
Warning Song by David Vandervort
Fast Food on Mars by Shirley Valencia

Short Form:
1st Place: Write, Robot by Margaret Rhee
2nd Place: Common Language by Elizabeth R. McClellan
3rd Place: My Crows by Marion Boyer

Honorable Mentions:
News of the World by Kali Lightfoot
The library of butterflies by Sandra Lindow
Xenolinguistics by F. J. Bergmann

Long Form:
1st Place: Sorry, I Can’t Design Your Futuristic Bug Creature by William Stobb
2nd Place: 100 Reasons to have Sex with an Alien by F.J. Bergmann
3rd Place: Grinding Disney #2 by Michele Tracy Berger

Honorable Mentions:
Getting Winterized: A Guide to Rural Living by Elizabeth R. McClellan
Dr. Frankenstein’s Printing Apparatus by Carl Donsbach
What the Map Knows by Sheree Renée Thomas

The SFPA speculative poetry contest was open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes are awarded for best poem in 3 categories: Dwarf (poems 1–10 lines); Short (11–49 lines [prose poems 0–499 words]); Long (50 lines and more [prose 500 words and up]). All sub-genres of speculative poetry were allowed in any form. They are "Blind-judged" meaning that all author identification will be removed before poems are sent to the judge. This year, the judge looked at all of the entries submitted.

The Science Fiction Poetry Association was founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction, fantasy, horror, science, and surrealistic poetry.

This year's judge was Kenji C. Liu, a 1.5-generation immigrant from New Jersey, now in Southern California. His writing and art arises from his work as an activist, educator, artist, and cultural worker. A Pushcart Prize nominee and first runner-up finalist for the Poets & Writers 2013 California Writers Exchange Award, his writing is forthcoming or published in Barrow Street Journal, CURA, The Baltimore Review, RHINO Poetry, Generations, Eye to the Telescope, Ozone Park Journal, Kweli Journal, Doveglion Press, Best American Poetry's blog, Lantern Review, and others. His poetry chapbook You Left Without Your Shoes was nominated for a 2009 California Book Award. A three-time VONA alum and recipient of residencies at Djerassi and Blue Mountain Center, he is completing a full-length poetry book. He is the poetry editor emeritus of Kartika Review.

This year's contest chair was Joshua Gage, an ornery curmudgeon from Cleveland. His first full-length collection, breaths, is available from VanZeno Press. Intrinsic Night, a collaborative project he wrote with J. E. Stanley, was published by Sam’s Dot Publishing. His most recent collection, Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse, is available on Poet’s Haven Press. He is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Naropa University. He has a penchant for Pendleton shirts, rye whiskey and any poem strong enough to yank the breath out of his lungs. He stomps around Cleveland in a purple bathrobe where he hosts the monthly Deep Cleveland Poetry hour and enjoys the beer at Brew Kettle.