The 2019 Rhysling Anthology
Author: David C. Kopaska-Merkel Ed.
Genre: Speculative Poetry
Year: 2019
Rating: 9 of 10
One of the things that I love best in poetry is when it is used as a form of storytelling. Speculative poetry tends to tell stories, not always, but often, and this is the reason that I gravitate towards reading and writing poetry with these themes. If you’ve read my reviews before you will know that I am somewhat biased in my views of fantasy and horror. I usually don’t care much for the genres in general and typically just want straight science fiction. That being said I really enjoyed this collection even though most of the collection was not in my opinion sci-fi. If you’re interested in speculative poetry I highly recommend this collection and looking up the SFPA (the organization that puts this collection together). While there are too many poets in the anthology to mention them all, here’s a list of my favorite poems included in the anthology: Generation Ship by David Barber, Station Rain by Erik Burdett, Consumption by Jennifer Ruth Jackson, The Southern Lady by Marge Simon, Dead-Eye Girl by Holly Lyn Walrath, If You Would Seek a Seeress by Rebecca Buchanan, The Last Transport by Frank Coffman, Misstep by David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Ann K. Schwader, Atomic Numbers by D.A. Xiaolin Spires. And congratulations to this year’s winners: Beth Cato & Sarah Tolmie.