Taking Submissions: Eye to the Telescope #48

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Deadline: March 15th, 2023
Payment: US 4¢/word rounded up to nearest dollar; minimum US $4, maximum $25
Theme: Poetry involving fungi! Details below

Eye to the Telescope 48, Fungi, will be edited by Avra Margariti.

FUNGI: Mushrooms, molds, and other fungi are organisms that live all around us, yet for the longest time they have eluded classification. They can offer sustenance and ensure survival, or cause a slow, poisoned death. Their mycelium and spores spread–subterranean, airborne–beyond our perception. Within forest ecosystems, fungi are decomposers: feeding on dead matter, returning the nutrients to the soil in a perpetual cycle of destruction and rebirth.

I am particularly interested in cli-fi, body horror, and fabulism from marginalized voices. Make me feel the sublime ache of metamorphosis, the transcendental comfort of belonging in a colony. Send me poems about prehistoric Prototaxites populating the earth; mycologists using parasitic cordyceps to reanimate the dead; Amanita princesses, priests, and witches; the Fungal Folk evolving to survive in space, a starship built out of their own filaments and tendrils.

Embrace the beauty in decay, and let your imagination mushroom like foxfire gleaming bioluminescent through the forest dark.

Submission Guidelines

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

  • Use the form at bit.ly/SFPAettt48 to submit.
  • Please submit 1–3 unpublished poems in English (ideally, attached as .docx or .txt) and include a short bio. Translations from other languages are acceptable with the permission of the original poet (unless public domain).
  • Inquiries only to [email protected] with “ETTT” in the subject line.
  • Deadline: March 15. The issue will appear on April 15, 2023.

Payment and rights

  • Accepted poems will be paid for at the following rate: US 4¢/word rounded up to nearest dollar; minimum US $4, maximum $25. Payment is on publication.
  • The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association normally uses PayPal to pay poets, but can also send checks.
  • Eye to the Telescope is an online publication. Therefore, First Electronic Rights (for original unpublished poems) are being sought.

Who can submit?

Anyone writing speculative poetry.


What is Speculative Poetry?

Speculative poetry is poetry which falls within the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror, plus some related genres such as magic realism, metafiction, and fabulation. It is not easy to give precise definitions, partly because many of these genres are framed in term of fiction rather than poetry.

A good starting point is “About Science Fiction Poetry” by Suzette Haden Elgin, the founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Despite its title, this article is applicable to all forms of speculative poetry.

Tim Jones, editor of Issue 2, had a go at defining science fiction poetry on his blog, in two parts (These blog posts date from 2009, and the Voyagers anthology has since been published. These posts do refer specifically to science fiction poetry, rather than the broader field of speculative poetry.):

timjonesbooks.co.nz/2009/02/08/what-is-science-fiction-poetry-part-1-definition/

.timjonesbooks.co.nz/2009/02/15/what-is-science-fiction-poetry-part-2-history/


What Is the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA)?

As the SFPA says on its website at sfpoetry.com, “The Science Fiction Poetry Association was founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction poetry. What is sf poetry? You know what they say about definitions—everybody has one. To be sure, it is poetry (we’ll leave that definition to you), but it’s poetry with some element of speculation—usually science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Some folks include surrealism, some straight science.”

See the SFPA site for lots more information—and please consider joining.

Via: Eye to the Telescope Magazine.

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