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The poems that appear below were winning entries in the annual Balticon Poetry Contest. Winners received a cash prize, a Balticon convention membership, an inivation to read their winning entries at Balticon, and publication in the BSFAN, the convention souvenir book. Balticon is the annual science fiction convention hosted Memorial Day Weekend by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society.
Co-sponsored by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and The Lite Circle, Inc., a Baltimore-based nonprofit literary organization, poetry programming at Balticon 42 explores the arena of verse from inspiration and writing to submitting for publication and an overview of small press publishing. There will be a poetry workshop and a poetry reading featuring winners of the Balticon 42 SF Poetry contest as well as an open reading. To participate either e-mail poetry@balticon.org or check the Poetry Track/Workshop box on the registration form.
Enter the Balticon 42 Poetry Contest!
- Entries should address the themes of science fiction/fantasy/science.
- 1st prize: $100; 2nd prize: $75; 3rd prize: $50.
- Winners will receive a cash prize, convention membership and be invited to read their winning entries at Balticon 42. Winning entries will be published in the BSFAN, the Balticon souvenir book. Attendance at Balticon is not required to win.
- Limit: 3 poems/person, maximum 50 lines each.
- No entry fee.
- Deadline: Mailed entries must be postmarked and e-mail entries received by April 1, 2008. Please include your name, address, phone & e-mail address and a brief bio with your entry.
- Entries may be e-mailed to poetry@bsfs.org or mailed to "Balticon 42 Poetry Contest," c/o BSFS, PO Box 686, Baltimore, MD 21203.
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First Place Winner
Ode to J.P.L.*
(*Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
- Now I finally understand
- We ride a scrap of Sky
Hitched to the limb of
A minor galaxy.
For I, too, have kissed the
Ashen lunar cheek,
Have seen a cold,
Dusty sun rise heavy
Above, rocky Martian sand.
- I have peered into the rusted
- Cyclone smile of Jupiter,
Have watched lightning flash
In Saturn's braided rings,
And on the Galilean Moons,
Have felt their flesh of ice
And fire.
- Your fingers still count
- From one to nothing
And bring us images of
Distant, empty places.
And when they do,
I touch the Earth,
Feel it is warm, alive, desperately
Longing to be loved, like
An aging parent,
Years after the children have left home!
--Rosalind Nester Ellis
Second Place Winner
Lycanthropy
Refuse all intercourse with comb or brush
And stand, moon-blanched, shoulders hung
Against the hush of autumn lungs
That breathe their still, illegal tender
Like a tenor saxaphone whose weather
Rains against your skin. Tonight you'd rather
Walk the syncopated streets than sleep,
The counterpoint of cats and window-peepers
Slaps you in the face--the clap
As clouds and stars collide. Deny the shrill
Policeman's silver whistle. Feral,
Canine, vault the convent wall
To waltz a private rosary, bark
The deer-bark, drive incisors hard
Against the luminescent heart
Of prey. Know every vent-pipe, each blind
Half-closed, every shape a man makes, standing
Still or skewered to his fecund
Bitch, in heat, praising the stink
Of love in moans and high-pitched squeaks.
Stars rise, stars sink
Like stones cast into water
Or laughter drowned in tears.
Believe there's little left that still adheres
The way that childhood stitches dreams to sleep.
And down beside the drainage ditch you sip
The run-off with your pallid lips
While owls bleat merry homage to your curt
Projecting ribs, the sheal of straw and turf
In which you weigh the gravity of mirth.
--John Jenkinson
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Third Place Winner
Rubbings
Allan pressed the tissue
paper hard against
the stone, breathed
upon the name
to flatten the film,
rubbed his pencil
against the engraving,
then pulled it away.
Holding it up to the light,
he smiled. "Look, honey,"
he said. "A perfect
image of a mystery
from the distant past."
"I'm sorry," Jane said.
"I was looking
through my telescope
at the Orion Nebula.
What was that?"
--Greg Beatty
Bio: Greg Beatty (http://home.earthlink.net/~gbeatty/). He supports his writing habit by teaching for the University of Phoenix Online. When he’s not at his computer, he enjoys cooking, practicing martial arts, and having complex interpersonal relationships.
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First Place Winner
The Blob
devoured an old man, sucked in a nurse,
grew bigger and bigger--glowing
Deluxe red--after each attack.
My sister and I sat, legs folded,
in front of the TV, the volume low,
leaned close to the Zenith, eager
to hear every scream and cry for help.
Mother lay passed out on the couch.
We held in our shrieks and shouts, trying
not to rouse her awake, into trapping us
with Johnny Cash songs blaring
from the stereo; cigarette smoke
creeping slowly into every room;
glasses smashed; the phone dangling
off the hook, the automated recording
repeating; the slurred version
of her voice yelling our names, pulling
us into her sticky, gin kisses.
I squeezed my sister's thigh
as The Blob spread itself over
the Downingtown diner, locking
everyone inside. Uncertain
they would escape unscathed, we begged
them to shoot or stab--instead they sprayed
a fire extinguisher, watched
the creature retreat from the cold.
In The End, The Blob captured
and flown to a freezing, Artic death.
Couples held each other close, cried—
some cheered the police chief. A big
question mark lingered on the screen
before the credits rolled.
What would come next
for those who survived? Behind us,
moaning, a hand reaching--
our mother began to wake.
--Jeff Walt
Bio: Jeff Walt’s poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in New Millennium Writings (1st Place Poetry Prize XIII), The Ledge, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Inkwell Magazine (Honorable Mention/5th Annual Poetry Competition), Explorations (2nd Place Award for Poetry), The Sun, Cream City Review, Gay and Lesbian Review, and the anthologies Intimate Kisses: The Poetry of Sexual Pleasure (New World Library, 2001), Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage (Grayson Books, 2003), and The Poets’ Grimm: Twentieth Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales (Story Line Press, 2003). In addition, he was recently nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize.
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Second Place Winner
Odd Jason Out
pan flutes titillate the ear
leading his thoughts
a merry chase
through decadence
an artful glimpse
of curve at breast and thigh
through tousled tresses
as shapely legs
dance to the piper
in wooden glade
fluttering hands
graceful as a butterfly
beckon a siren's call
as ancient eyes burn
with unfettered passion
unuttered
yet clearly written
in arched brow
and hints of a smile
tugging tempting lips
there is no sin
in natural order
but society is
an unnatural child
--Danielle Ackley-McPhail
©4/12/2003
Bio: The youngest of five children, Danielle Ackley-McPhail began devouring books at a very young age and eventually developed the talent for telling tales of her own. This love of the written word has followed her throughout her life.
She has shared her time and talent with various literary publications, including The Cantilever; The literary journal of Florida Southern College; The Grubstreet Writer, the literary journal of Kean College of NJ; and The Amazing Instant Novelist, an on-line writing area sponsored by America Online. Her work has also appeared in the November 2002 issue of Sabledrake Magazine (www.sabledrake.com) and the SF/Fantasy/Gothic Horror anthology, Through A Glass Darkly (Lite Circle Books, February 2003).
With this, her first novel, she explores the rich mythology of her Celtic heritage and her own longtime fascination with fantasy. At the turn of the new year she completed the sequel, Tomorrow's Memories, and is currently looking for a home for it.
Danielle lives in New York with her husband, Mike, mother-in-law Teresa, and three extremely spoiled cats.
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Third Place Winner
The Adventures of Books
The best time of all is at 1 a.m.
All is still, and you are alone.
A hot cup of coffee accompanies you
On the night's adventures.
Where shall you go tonight?
Whether it be to the land of dragons,
Or the mystery of outer deep space,
Or the atmosphere of 19th century England,
I know that you will have a great time.
Tonight, I myself am on my way
To the mysteries of the forests,
In a land that is far away.
I'd ask you to join me,
But there is only room enough for one.
Perhaps, on your journey you will meet a centaur,
Or possibly battle a Wizard for golden treasure.
Maybe you will sail on the high seas,
Or fly through unknown outer space.
Wherever you go tonight,
I wish you good luck!
--Leah Grasso
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First Place Winner
Suspended Animation
We left the atmosphere in a glittering swarm
of endless duplications of our shiny carapaces,
their clephshydral entrails studiously trickling,
counting down to a less likely tomorrow
as we fled the noisy light of our reddening sun.
A blue star in the constellation of the Dragonfly
was chosen again and again by the fanned array
of holy images, no matter how many times
magicians shuffled their whispering surfaces.
For days, everyone took turns at the telescopes.
Beyond familiar stars the field worked for years,
connecting us with invisible filaments to our past.
When an unexpected demonstration of a doctrine
in the sacrament of physics turned our brothers
to a sudden flash, then cooling cinders drifting
into another universe, we became uncertain
of our destination, lost in an altered cosmology.
We entered the stacked, small cavities of oblivion
and sealed their doors against the pressure of grief.
Sleepwalking toward entropy, we float onward
in a silent void, wrapped in the blanket of time.
In the house of dreams we open the curtains
and wait for the pale light we know will come
from a strange sun rising over an alien world.
--F.J. Bergmann
Bio: F.J. Bergmann is from Wisconsin and other places. She considers herself primarily a visual artist who has snuck in through the back door of literature, and likes science fiction. One of her pseudopods can reach all the way from the bedroom to the refrigerator.
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Second Place Winner
The Celebrity
We didn't storm the streets in fear
as people did in yesteryear,
or photograph, respectfully,
the apparition in our sky--
instead, we put his name in lights!
We sent out nosy satellites
to harvest samples, poke and pry,
and ask him questions, eye to eye.
Perhaps, when next his orbit brings
him sunward-side of Saturn's rings,
he'll find, as stars of Terra do,
that he has dropped from public view;
and fly past, with a dusty sigh
for the pomp and praise of days gone by.
--Victoria Gaile Laidler
Bio: Victoria Gaile Laidler was born in New York, grew up in Rhode Island, and now lives in an 80 year old home in Savage Maryland. She has worked at the (Hubble) Space Telescope Science Institute for 18 years, contributing to the Digitised Sky Survey and the billion-object Guide Star Catalog. She is an avid SF reader, a poet, a singer, and a ritual artist.
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Third Place Winner
Unresponsive Sky
The skeleton surrounded by the skin
is warm to the touch.
Ask anyone.
It is something like a sea of stars
burning among planets.
Black sky.
Quiet voices lost in the universe
echoing in the distance.
Silence, the response.
--L.B. Sedlacek
Bio: Sedlacek, L.B. Editor of The Poetry Market E-zine, Contributing Editor & Online Instructor of Muse's Kiss. M.A. from Wake Forest University. Chapbooks include: ...after Graceland, The Cat and the Carroll A. Deering, Alexandra's Wreck (Kitty Litter Press - http://kittylitterpress.com). Poetry publications include: Feelings of the Heart, HazMat Review, Anthology, Doggerel, Poetry Life & Times, The Odeum, Facets Literary Magazine, The Guild, Blue Collar Review, Beggar's Press, Improvajazzation Nation, Unlikely Stories, Starry Night Review Literary E-zine, IdioM, Red Owl Magazine, Raskolnikov's Cellar, Muse's Kiss Literary Zine, The Pink Chameleon, Pop Gun.
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