SF&F Poetry - Lighten Up Dudes!

I've just completed my second selection of sci-fi and fantasy poetry for the British Science Fiction Association Focus magazine and I'm afraid I have to take a leaf out of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and suggest that some would-be contributors need to lighten up dudes! We had a record number of submissions but way too many that lacked the spark of life (which might seem oxymoronic when writing poetry about vampires and zombies) and deftness of touch. Or, to put it another way: don’t take yourselves and your writing so seriously. Have fun, enjoy yourselves with your craft – and you’ll also find your readers will enjoy your work more.

What else? Moving on from oxymorons to irony, it is ironic that earlier this winter the Science Fiction Poetry Association in the US agreed on a new tee-shirt design featuring a slogan by the American horror writer and poet Michael Arnzen. (You can find him at @MikeArnzen on Twitter.) The SFPA slogan is “in space no one can hear you rhyme” which is a great pun on the old Alien movies tag-line. That’s the good news. The bad news is we also had a glut of submissions that were, to paraphrase the words of that arch-diva Grace Jones “slaves to the rhyme”. End rhymes have their place in poetry but not clunking, forced end rhymes at the expense of everything else. Once again, have fun with your work and so will your readers.

Topics-wise, the most popular subject matters for poems were Doctor Who, vampires and zombies. Very little ‘traditional’ science fiction and no High Fantasy, which is perhaps surprising considering the new Hobbit movie is in the news. I know I shouldn’t express preferences but my favourite in this selection is California Vamp by James S Dorr (reproduced below). It has that deft touch I mentioned, capturing the poignancy of the protagonist’s plight but without hammering the message home with all the subtlety of a stake being driven home into a vampire’s coffin.

My apologies to all contributors that I've had to hold on to your submissions for so long but a sudden and unexpected change of editor has meant our production schedules went out of the window. I'll be notifying you all in due course on the fate of your submissions.

CALIFORNIA VAMP 

She missed the sun. 
While vampirism was a ball, 
she missed the sun, 
the days of partying and fun, 
the beach, the bars, her friends, the mall, 
non blood-based drinks, but most of all 
she missed the sun.  

James S Dorr