R.B. Lemberg's Blog, page 27
January 22, 2013
2012 Poetry Recommendations by Editors – Amal El-Mohtar
At the end of last year, I approached a few editors of speculative poetry to recommend five “Best of…” poems of 2012. I asked that the five recommended poems would be written, edited and published by other people, rather than the editors themselves.
Today we continue the “Poetry recommendations by editors” series with five “Best of…” picks by Amal El-Mohtar – speculative poet, writer, and editor of Goblin Fruit. Thank you, Amal!
Amal’s recommendations
I chose these in no particular order of preference; I have no ranking for them.
* “The Clock-House” by Sonya Taaffe. First apeared in Stone Telling 7.
I doubt that I could be more eloquent than Sofia in reflecting on this poem. I chose it because for much of the year it rarely left my mind — certain images (the thin twist of wrists / like piano wire), certain turns of phrase, but mostly the fact of it being in the world. The fact that someone took Alan Turing’s life and connected the threads between Snow White and apples and milk and wrought this deeply mournful and loving and beautiful piece of art that feels like it must have always existed.
* “Snowbound in Hamadan,” by Sofia Samatar. First appeared in Stone Telling 8
Sofia has this brilliant way of beginning a poem conversationally and then shifting its cadences from plain speech to lyric, from lyric to spell. I hear this at work here, and love this poem for teaching me about things I did not know, in the way I would have been likely to learn about them: with awe, with sadness, with regret.
* “What the Dragon Said: A Love Story,” by Catherynne M. Valente. First appeared on Tor.com in April, 2012.
I think I loved this best of the poems Cat had up on Tor.com last year, during their Poetry Month. These lines in particular:
Don’t you ever feel
like you’re just
a story someone is telling
about someone like you?
They resonated and reverberated with me. Usually with Cat’s poems it’s the gem-sharp imagery that cuts into me, the inescapability of her lines, but in this one it’s the conversation wrought of truths that gets to me and wrings me out.
* “The Gardener,” by Sandi Leibowitz. First appeared in Mythic Delirium 27, published November 15, 2012.
Look, this poem is narrated by Ishtar and features the sucking of peaches. Obviously it is calculated to win my heart. But also lines like “the cracks worn in his roughened hands / like the bark of almond trees he planted” pluck strings in me. It is a poem that made me smell summer and fruit when I read it, and for that I loved it.
* “The Three Immigrations,” by Rose Lemberg. First appeared in Strange Horizons, November 26, 2012
This poem just devastated me with its skill, its structure, with its subject that is very close to my heart, with its language about language and living between languages. It left me in tears.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
January 21, 2013
2012 Poetry Recommendations by Editors – Adrienne J. Odasso
At the end of last year, I approached a few editors of speculative poetry to recommend five “Best of…” poems of 2012. I asked that the five recommended poems would be written, edited and published by other people, rather than the editors themselves.
I am now happy to share the editors’ recommendations with you! We begin the series with Adrienne J. Odasso, a poet and co-editor of Strange Horizons and the Dark Mountain Project. Thank you, Adrienne!
Adrienne’s Recomendations:
1. “How to Undress a Mountain,” by Aditi Rao (qarrtsiluni, The Fragments Issue, Autumn 2012)
This piece of prose-poetry explores storytelling in the form of a metaphor I’m sure I’ll never forget. We take mountains for granted: as bucolic backdrops, as inhospitable landscapes, as statistics in geology textbooks. After reading this, you will never look at mountains—or at yourself—the same way again.
2. “Sister,” by Alex Dally MacFarlane (Through the Gate, Issue 1, September 2012)
Tales of fox-creatures and other similar shapeshifting beasties have become (at least it seems to me) more prevalent in the landscape of fantasy and speculative poetry in the past few years or so, almost to the point of being overdone. Not so with this piece, as uniquely spun themes of anger, grief, obsession, and familial love hum through its lines to a haunting and satisfying finish.
3. “In His Eighty-Second Year,” by Dominik Parisien (Stone Telling, The Queer Issue, March 2012)
This poem stands as an eloquent, melancholy, and spellbinding example of why we need more narratives about and from the perspectives of those who are older, wiser, and see the world from perspectives that many of us cannot.
4. “Sarcophagus,” by N. E. Taylor (inkscrawl, Issue 3, April 2012)
We have waited long enough for a magazine that celebrates poetry in its briefest, most incisive forms, and, thus far, inkscrawl has more than delivered. In this brief, biting gem, history, magic, and mortality come full circle in two elegant lines.
5. “Heart Rot,” by Amanda Reck (Goblin Fruit, Summer 2012 Issue)
Fairytale echoes fuse seamlessly with the difficult reality of losing a parent to terminal illness; leaves and bark, pages and spines (trees both living and dead) guide us through a wistful, lovely text documenting decay and rebirth. Amanda Reck is one to watch, as her poem called “Skin Walker,” (http://www.goblinfruit.net/2012/sprin...) which appeared in the Spring 2012 Issue of Goblin Fruit, nearly also made my list.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
2012 Poetry Recommendations – Adrienne J. Odasso
At the end of last year, I approached a few editors of speculative poetry to recommend five “Best of…” poems of 2012. I asked that the five recommended poems would be written, edited and published by other people, rather than the editors themselves.
I am now happy to share the editors’ recommendations with you! We begin the series with Adrienne J. Odasso, a poet and co-editor of Strange Horizons and the Dark Mountain Project. Thank you, Adrienne!
Adrienne’s Recomendations:
1. “How to Undress a Mountain,” by Aditi Rao (qarrtsiluni, The Fragments Issue, Autumn 2012)
This piece of prose-poetry explores storytelling in the form of a metaphor I’m sure I’ll never forget. We take mountains for granted: as bucolic backdrops, as inhospitable landscapes, as statistics in geology textbooks. After reading this, you will never look at mountains—or at yourself—the same way again.
2. “Sister,” by Alex Dally MacFarlane (Through the Gate, Issue 1, September 2012)
Tales of fox-creatures and other similar shapeshifting beasties have become (at least it seems to me) more prevalent in the landscape of fantasy and speculative poetry in the past few years or so, almost to the point of being overdone. Not so with this piece, as uniquely spun themes of anger, grief, obsession, and familial love hum through its lines to a haunting and satisfying finish.
3. “In His Eighty-Second Year,” by Dominik Parisien (Stone Telling, The Queer Issue, March 2012)
This poem stands as an eloquent, melancholy, and spellbinding example of why we need more narratives about and from the perspectives of those who are older, wiser, and see the world from perspectives that many of us cannot.
4. “Sarcophagus,” by N. E. Taylor (inkscrawl, Issue 3, April 2012)
We have waited long enough for a magazine that celebrates poetry in its briefest, most incisive forms, and, thus far, inkscrawl has more than delivered. In this brief, biting gem, history, magic, and mortality come full circle in two elegant lines.
5. “Heart Rot,” by Amanda Reck (Goblin Fruit, Summer 2012 Issue)
Fairytale echoes fuse seamlessly with the difficult reality of losing a parent to terminal illness; leaves and bark, pages and spines (trees both living and dead) guide us through a wistful, lovely text documenting decay and rebirth. Amanda Reck is one to watch, as her poem called “Skin Walker,” (http://www.goblinfruit.net/2012/sprin...) which appeared in the Spring 2012 Issue of Goblin Fruit, nearly also made my list.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
January 14, 2013
Announcing inkscrawl 5!
This is to announce that inkscrawl 5 is here, guest-edited by the original founder and editor of inkscrawl, Mitchell Hart (
mitchell_hart
)!This issue includes marvelous short work by Adrienne J. Odasso (
ajodasso
), Amy Ekins, Keely Sarr, Janeen Pergrin Rastall, Cassandra de Alba, Michele Bannister (
selidor
), Jazz Sexton, Sonya Taaffe (
sovay
), and Virginia M. Mohlere (
snowy_owlet
).Enjoy - and spread the word! The next issue will be edited by Samantha Henderson (
samhenderson
), and the theme is Journeys. Sam will be reading for inkscrawl 6 beginning on February 1st.
January 2, 2013
Sale announcement, and a short note on “Among Others”
My unclassifiable maybe-flash, maybe-prose poem “Bone Shadows” will appear in the poetry section of the new Interfictions. Sofia Samatar edits the poetry department, so if you have something suitable, please consider sending it to her!
Tangentially, there is an odd blog post on Black Gate entitled “SFF Corruption” in which a blogger is accusing Jo Walton and a few other authors of logrolling the Nebula. He also calls Among Others “banal.” I am not going to argue with this blogger, it is not worth my time. However, I wanted to remark on Among Others. In the interests of full disclosure, I have published a poem by Jo in Stone Telling 3, and have been talking with her on Livejournal, and she has been very kind to me on many occasions. But I am also an extremely critical reader, and it is very hard to get me to vote for anything. I only vote for things that astound me. So. When I was shortlisted for my academic dream job and the campus interview started going south, I stole moments to read Among Others on my Kindle, because it sustained me. I recommended this book to everyone – friends, colleagues, graduate students, undergraduate students, former students. I gave two copies away even though I could not afford it. I discussed the book with academic acquaintances with whom I hardly ever talk about SFF. And heck yeah, I put it on my Nebula ballot. That’s what I do when a work wows me to this degree. And I will continue to do so.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
December 31, 2012
Readercon special interest panel proposal - for crit?
Sociolinguistics and SFF
Sociolinguistics studies the ways in which language intersects with society. It looks at issues such as interactions of language with power, prestige, gender, hegemony, and literacy; bilingualism and multilingualism; translation; language birth and language death, to name but a few. Those topics are relevant to genre authors writing in multicultural settings, and to genre authors writing intersectionally. In this panel, we will discuss genre books in which those topics have been explored, and consider sociolinguistics tools and concepts relevant to writers interested in exploring these topics.
---
It is very Socioling 101, but perhaps that is a good thing. I simply do not know. Should it be more specific?
If you would like to be on the panel, please let me know. You absolutely do not have to be a sociolinguist to be on this panel.
December 16, 2012
Reprint sale
My Jewish magic realist short story “Seven Losses of Na Re”, which originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction, will be reprinted in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s feminist speculative fiction anthology.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
December 14, 2012
Announcement: ST10 submissions
rose_lemberg
at Announcement: ST10 submissionsDear friends of Stone Telling,Due to circumstances outside of our control, we need to postpone the reading period for ST10 (Body) until early 2013. We will let you know as soon as we are ready to reopen to submissions.
Thank you very much for understanding.
December 11, 2012
Announcing: Stone Telling 9 Lineup
rose_lemberg
at Announcing: Stone Telling 9 LineupIt's materializing late in the year, but it's a hell of an issue. The order is subject to change.
Feature: JT Stewart
Foreword by Eileen Gunn
Poetry:
Weaver
Ancestors
Cinderella Begins Her Memoir
The Novice Takes Notes For Going South
Kiss me / Change me
Review of JT Stewart's chapbook Promised Lands, by Amal El-Mohtar
Main issue:
Let me show you you, by Dominik J. Parisien
Aphasia, by Alyza Taguilaso
embedded, by Lisa M. Bradley
A Black Dog, by Mat Joiner
The Tiny English-Hungarian Phrasebook For Visiting Extraterrestrials, by Bogi Takács
Returns, by Brianna Belle Arnette
flood, by Ishita Basu Mallik
Foam, Braided with Teeth, by Michele M. Bannister
The Unicorn at the Racetrack, by Minal Hajratwala
With Bats in our Belfry, Dear, Earth Water and Sky, by Neile Graham
Article:
"The Laughter of Women: on Carol Ann Duffy as Poet Laureate" by Kari Sperring
Review:
Kelly Rose Pflug-Back's "These Burning Streets" by Mike Allen
Roundtable, with Julia Rios
The issue is hopefully going to go up in about two weeks or so.
