Speculative poetry
Encyclopedia
Also variously called science fiction poetry or SF poetry or fantastic poetry, speculative poetry is to poetry
roughly what speculative fiction
is to fiction
. Speculative poetry is often published by the same markets that publish science fiction
, fantasy
and horror
.
Speculative poetry is not defined by form, unlike most sub-categories of poetry. Speculative poets work in the full variety of forms available to all poets; what makes speculative poetry speculative is generally the subject matter, though some poets have approached their speculation on a language level, experimenting with possible future or alien dialects and the like. Suzette Haden Elgin
, founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association
, defines speculative poetry as being "about a reality that is in some way different from the existing reality."
Weird poetry is a subset of speculative fiction which concentrates (in the same way as horror fiction) on ghostly, macabre, spectral, supernatural and cosmic themes.
Writers of speculative and weird poetry include Duane Ackerson
, Brian Aldiss
, Mike Allen
, Robert H. Barlow, Ambrose Bierce
, Michael Bishop
, Leigh Blackmore
, Bruce Boston
, Ray Bradbury
, Joseph Payne Brennan
, G. Sutton Brieding, Lin Carter
, Adam Cornford
, Mary Elizabeth Counselman
, Keith Allen Daniels, L. Sprague de Camp
, Thomas M. Disch
, Leah Bodine Drake
, Phillip A. Ellis, Steve Eng, Michael Fantina, Robert Frazier
, Nora May French
, W. Paul Ganley, Daphne Gottlieb
, Neile Graham
, Scott E. Green, Joe Haldeman
, William Scott Home, Robert E. Howard
, Ursula K. Le Guin
, Frank Belknap Long
, Lilith Lorraine, Samuel Loveman
, Danny Charles Lovecraft, Brian Lumley
, H.P. Lovecraft, Andrew Joron
, Arthur Machen
, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, , H. Warner Munn
, Fred Phillips, Tim Pratt
, Brett Rutherford, Ann K. Schwader, Donald Sidney-Fryer
, Clark Ashton Smith
, Marge Simon
, Steve Sneyd, George Sterling
, W. Gregory Stewart
, Richard L. Tierney
, Jeff Vandermeer
, Karl Edward Wagner
, Donald Wandrei
, Kyla Ward
, Joe West and Jane Yolen
.
The major award for the field is the Rhysling Award.
Some Online Venues for Speculative Poetry:
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
roughly what speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
is to fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
. Speculative poetry is often published by the same markets that publish science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
.
Speculative poetry is not defined by form, unlike most sub-categories of poetry. Speculative poets work in the full variety of forms available to all poets; what makes speculative poetry speculative is generally the subject matter, though some poets have approached their speculation on a language level, experimenting with possible future or alien dialects and the like. Suzette Haden Elgin
Suzette Haden Elgin
Suzette Haden Elgin is an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages...
, founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association
Science Fiction Poetry Association
The Science Fiction Poetry Association was established in 1978 by Suzette Haden Elgin to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction poetry. The organization administers the Rhysling Award and publishes the journal Star*Line, as well as providing market listings and industry news...
, defines speculative poetry as being "about a reality that is in some way different from the existing reality."
Weird poetry is a subset of speculative fiction which concentrates (in the same way as horror fiction) on ghostly, macabre, spectral, supernatural and cosmic themes.
Writers of speculative and weird poetry include Duane Ackerson
Duane Ackerson
Duane Ackerson is an American writer of speculative poetry and fiction. He currently lives in Salem, Oregon.Duane Ackerson's work has appeared in anthologies that include The Year's Best SF 1974, 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories, Future Pastimes, and the textbook Writing Poetry...
, Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
, Mike Allen
Mike Allen (poet)
Mike Allen is an American editor and writer of speculative fiction and poetry. He currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia.His short story "," published in the October 2007 issue of Helix SF, was a finalist for the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Short Story.The Philadelphia Inquirer has described Allen as...
, Robert H. Barlow, Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
, Michael Bishop
Michael Bishop (author)
Michael Lawson Bishop is an award-winning American writer. Over four decades and thirty books, he has created a body of work that stands among the most admired in modern science fiction and fantasy literature....
, Leigh Blackmore
Leigh Blackmore
Leigh David Blackmore is an Australian horror writer, critic, editor, occultist and musician. He served as the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association . His work has been nominated twice for the Ditmar Award, once for fiction and once for criticism...
, Bruce Boston
Bruce Boston
Bruce Boston is an American speculative fiction writer and poet who was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California. He received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, 1965, and an M.A., 1967...
, Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, Joseph Payne Brennan
Joseph Payne Brennan
Joseph Payne Brennan was an American writer of fantasy and horror fiction, and also a poet. He lived most of his life in New Haven, Connecticut, and worked at the Yale Library for over 40 years....
, G. Sutton Brieding, Lin Carter
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
, Adam Cornford
Adam Cornford
Adam Cornford is an American poet, librettist, and essayist.-Biography:Adam Francis Cornford is the son of Christopher Cornford and a lineal descendant of naturalist Charles Darwin...
, Mary Elizabeth Counselman
Mary Elizabeth Counselman
Mary Elizabeth Counselman was an American writer of short stories and poetry.- Biography :Mary Elizabeth Counselman was born on November 19, 1911 in Birmingham, AL and began writing poetry as a child. She later moved to Gainesville, Georgia where her father was a faculty member at the Riverside...
, Keith Allen Daniels, L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
, Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
, Leah Bodine Drake
Leah Bodine Drake
-External Links:Leah Bodine Drake papers at Kentucky Digital Library...
, Phillip A. Ellis, Steve Eng, Michael Fantina, Robert Frazier
Robert Frazier
Robert Alexander Frazier is an American writer of speculative poetry and fiction, as well as an impressionist painter on Nantucket Island....
, Nora May French
Nora May French
Nora May French was a California poet and member of the bohemian literary circles of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club which flourished after the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906....
, W. Paul Ganley, Daphne Gottlieb
Daphne Gottlieb
Daphne Gottlieb is a Queer San Francisco-based Performance Poet. She is the author of Final Girl , Why Things Burn , Pelt and Kissing Dead Girls She is the editor of Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader and Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories...
, Neile Graham
Neile Graham
Neile Graham is a Canadian poet and scholar. She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and currently lives in Seattle in the United States.Neile Graham serves as the program administrator for both the Ph.D...
, Scott E. Green, Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman
Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.-Life :Haldeman was born June 9, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Maryland and Anchorage, Alaska as a child. Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known...
, William Scott Home, Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
, Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
, Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to...
, Lilith Lorraine, Samuel Loveman
Samuel Loveman
Samuel Loveman was a American poet, critic, and dramatist. His exotic and imaginative verse included 1926's the Hermaphrodite and Other Poems and 1944's the Sphinx Samuel Loveman (1887-1976) was a American poet, critic, and dramatist. His exotic and imaginative verse included 1926's the...
, Danny Charles Lovecraft, Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley is an English horror fiction writer.Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army's Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer.He added to H. P...
, H.P. Lovecraft, Andrew Joron
Andrew Joron
Andrew Joron is an American writer of experimental poetry. He began by writing science fiction poetry. Joron's later poetry, combining scientific and philosophical ideas with the sonic properties of language, has been compared to the work of the Russian Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov...
, Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, , H. Warner Munn
H. Warner Munn
Harold Warner Munn was an American writer of fantasy, horror and poetry. He was an early friend and associate of authors H. P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn...
, Fred Phillips, Tim Pratt
Tim Pratt
Tim Pratt is a science fiction and fantasy writer and poet. He grew up in the vicinity of Dudley, North Carolina, and attended Appalachian State University, where he earned a Bachelor's in English. In 1999 he attended the Clarion East Writing Workshop...
, Brett Rutherford, Ann K. Schwader, Donald Sidney-Fryer
Donald Sidney-Fryer
Donald Sidney-Fryer is a poet and entertainer born September 8, 1934, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and moved to California, where he attended university, and met Clark Ashton Smith several times...
, Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
, Marge Simon
Marge Simon
Marge Simon is an American artist and a writer of speculative poetry and fiction. Her poems, short fiction, and illustrations have appeared in hundreds of publications, including Amazing Stories, Nebula Awards 32, Strange Horizons, The Pedestal Magazine, Chizine, Niteblade, Vestal Review, and Dark...
, Steve Sneyd, George Sterling
George Sterling
George Sterling was an American poet based in California who, during his time, was celebrated in Northern California as one of the greatest American poets, although he never gained much fame in the rest of the United States.-Biography:Sterling was born in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, the...
, W. Gregory Stewart
W. Gregory Stewart
W. Gregory Stewart is a poet most associated with speculative fiction. He has won the Rhysling Award four times.He was born in Canada, has lived in Australia, and currently resides in Los Angeles. Aside from poetry he also writes short fiction and was a past nominee for the Nebula Award for Best...
, Richard L. Tierney
Richard L. Tierney
Richard L. Tierney is an American writer, poet and scholar of H. P. Lovecraft. He is the coauthor of a series of Red Sonja novels, featuring cover art by Boris Vallejo. Some of his standalone novels utilize the mythology of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.-Youth:Tierney was born in Spencer, Iowa...
, Jeff Vandermeer
Jeff VanderMeer
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer is an American writer, editor and publisher.He is best known for his contributions to the New Weird and his stories about the city of Ambergris, in books like City of Saints and Madmen.-Biography:...
, Karl Edward Wagner
Karl Edward Wagner
Karl Edward Wagner was an American writer, editor and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. His disillusionment with the medical profession can be seen in the stories "The Fourth Seal" and "Into...
, Donald Wandrei
Donald Wandrei
Donald Albert Wandrei was an American science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction writer, poet and editor. He wrote as Donald Wandrei. He was the older brother of science fiction writer and artist Howard Wandrei...
, Kyla Ward
Kyla Ward
-Biography:Ward was born in New South Wales, Australia. She attended the University of Technology, Sydney where she gained a BA in communications.-Writing:Ward was first published in 1994 with her poem "Mary" which was featured in the magazine Bloodsongs...
, Joe West and Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen
Jane Hyatt Yolen is an American author and editor of almost 300 books. These include folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and children's books...
.
The major award for the field is the Rhysling Award.
See also
- New WeirdNew WeirdThe New Weird is a literary genre that began in the 1990s and developed in a series of novels and stories published from 2001 to 2005. The writers involved are mostly novelists who are considered to be parts of the horror and/or speculative fiction genres but who often cross genre boundaries...
- ScifaikuScifaikuScifaiku is a form of science fiction poetry first announced by Tom Brinck with his 1995 . It is inspired by Japanese haiku, but explores science, science fiction, and other speculative fiction themes, such as fantasy and horror. They are based on the principles and form of haiku but can deviate...
- Slipstream (genre)
- Speculative fictionSpeculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
- Speculative artSpeculative artSpeculative art can refer to:*Gambling*Investment**Investing in fine art*Fantasy art*Science fiction art*Alchemy*Speculative Philosophy-See also:*Futurology*Futurism*Surrealism*Absurdism*Dada*Speculative poetry*Speculative fiction...
Resources
- Elgin, Suzette HadenSuzette Haden ElginSuzette Haden Elgin is an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages...
, The Science Fiction Poetry Handbook, Suzette Haden Elgin, March 1, 2005, Sam's Dot Publishing ISBN 1-930847-81-5 http://www.sfpoetry.com/sfpoetryhandbook.html - Scott E. Green. Contemporary Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry: A Resource Guide and Biographical Directory (Greenwood Press, 1989) ISBN 0313263248 ISBN 9780313263248
- S.T. Joshi Emperors of Dreams: Some Notes on Weird Poetry. Prea' Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9804625-3-1
External links
- About Science Fiction Poetry by Suzette Haden ElginSuzette Haden ElginSuzette Haden Elgin is an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages...
, founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association - Science Fiction Poetry Association
- Speculative Poetry: A Symposium, Part 1 of 2 (Strange HorizonsStrange HorizonsStrange Horizons is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry in every issue....
) - Speculative Poetry: A Symposium, Part 2 of 2 (Strange HorizonsStrange HorizonsStrange Horizons is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry in every issue....
) - The Failure of Genre Poetry by Bruce BostonBruce BostonBruce Boston is an American speculative fiction writer and poet who was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California. He received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, 1965, and an M.A., 1967...
at the Fortean BureauFortean BureauThe Fortean Bureau was an online magazine published from Laramie, Wyoming, between 2002–06 and edited by Jeremy and Sarah Tolbert. It was published monthly from July 2002 to December 2004, then quarterly in 2005, with the final issue published in April 2006. There was a total of 33 issues.The... - Dialogues by Starlight: Three Approaches to Writing SF Poetry by Michael Collings
- Alchemical Post-Its, A Primer on Fantastic Poetry by Robert FrazierRobert FrazierRobert Alexander Frazier is an American writer of speculative poetry and fiction, as well as an impressionist painter on Nantucket Island....
Some Online Venues for Speculative Poetry: