April 2013 36.2 $5.00 Poetry by Ed Binkley 4 Wyrms & Wormholes — F.J. Bergmann 7 President’s Message — David C. Kopaska-Merkel 12 Elgin Awards Announcement 13 From the Small Press — David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Joshua Gage, Wendy Rathbone, Bryan Thao Worra, Terrie Leigh Relf, John Garrison, Susan Gabrielle 46 Xenopoetry — translation by Fred W. Bergmann Poetry 3 “Transmuter backed up” — David C. Kopaska-Merkel 6 I’m the Stone You Can Squeeze Blood from — Sarah Terry 8 Making Amends — Jason Sturner 9 Black Sabbath Sestina — Wade German 11 Don’t Think There’s Nothing to Fear — Kurt MacPhearson 11 Moon Jim Skinhead — John W. Sexton 11 “relearning farming” — David C. Kopaska-Merkel 11 New and Improved — David Dickinson 17 Mississippi Twilight — Chad Hensley • “green thumb” — LeRoy Gorman 18 My Blind Desire for the Fleeting — Robert Frazier 19 General Curse against One Who Has Tried to Harm You — Margaret Benbow 19 Ifrit — Jason Matthews 19 Oregon 2112 — Harvey J. Baine 20 Superiority Is Relative — Robert Laughlin 20 Terran delegation — Lauren McBride • Workshop — Lenore McComas Coberley 21 Our Hearts Cried Out — Alicia Cole 21 Who’s for Dinner — David C. Kopaska-Merkel 22 Interpose: A Love Poem — Scott T. Hutchison 23 His Majesty — Justin Hamm • Advice from the future — Damien Cowger 23 Famers — Vincent Miskell • “game for the outer world cup” — LeRoy Gorman 24 Towers of Light — Ann K. Schwader 25 In Monster Years, I’m Old — Lauren McBride 25 “the dogs go quack” — Kim L. Neidigh 25 The Truth about Fairies —Beth Cato • Old Fashions — Neal Wilgus 26 Keeping Company — Jarod K. Anderson 27 The City on the Hill — Jeanie Tomasko • Fungal Singularity — Holly Jensen 28 Hands, Discovered Independent of Body — Justin Hamm 28 Just the Way It Is — Tim Laffey • “she doesn’t like” — David C. Kopaska-Merkel 29 Wormhole — Alan Meyrowitz • Pallid Bone Telemetries — Marc Dorpema 30 Mad Scientists — Chris Bullard 31 Father Is Never Coming Home — Jeffrey Johannes 31 Wire Mother — Jason Matthews • A Questionable Immortality — Bruce Boston 32 Special Delivery from the Unnamed Quadrant — Jason Matthews 33 “offworld trade fair” — Carolyn M. Hinderliter 34 Lusus Naturae — Albert W. Grohmann • The Bed I Haven’t Made — Peg Duthie 35 After Oz — C. W. Johnson • warriors lament — Anna Sykora 37 Pinocchio in the Toothpick Factory — Andrew Kozma 37 Boa Boy Sends His Regrets — David C. Kopaska-Merkel Back Mayflies — Glenn Meisenheimer Illustrations 19 The Forest — Dina Djabieva 21 Onward Light Traveler — Denny E. Marshall 24 Nessiterix Attacks an Elephoid — Richard H. Fay 29 Aves — Dina Djabieva 33 Wheel of Time — Dina Djabieva 35 Desert of the Spiral Tower — Denny E. Marshall 37 Close-Up Encounters — Denny E. Marshall Star*Line 2 April 2013 STARLINE is pleased to congratulate our 2013 Rhysling nominees. SHORT POEMS: Going Viral • Mary A. Turzillo • 35.1 The Moon Tripped • Angel Favazza • 35.1 10 Things To Know About Staple Removers • Ian Hunter • 35.2 Absent Fiends • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff • 35.2 LOL_ALIENS • Elizabeth Barrette • 35.2 Regrets Only • Jeanie Tomasko • 35.3 Burning Down Woods on a Snowy Evening • James S. Dorr • 35.4 Cognizance: a Triptych • Kurt Macphearson • 35.4 “a rabid bat” • LeRoy Gorman • 35.4 LONG POEMS: Six Random Facts About Halley’s Comet • J.E. Stanley • 35.1 Casting the Future • Serena Fusek • 35.3 Transmuter backed up: basement’s full of lead. —David C. Kopaska-Merkel Apex Magazine congratulates Amal El-Mohtar and her fellow Rhysling Award nominees 2013 RHYSLING AWarD NOMINEE “NO POISONED COMB” BY AMAL EL-MOHTAR 2013 HUGO AWARD NOMINEE BEST SEMIPROZINE APEX MAGAZINE Apex-Magazine.com Star*Line 3 April 2013 Quality Control The sharp-eyed Reader may notice an unusual abundance of advertisements from other speculative poetry venues. This is a Good Thing! Not only does it mean that our lovely color covers will be possible for a few more issues, but it celebrates the coming of the annual Rhysling Awards and presents many other discerning publications in which nominated poems have appeared. A regrettably small number of SFPA members (less than a quarter of our membership) avail themselves of the opportunity to nominate poems— and even fewer bother to nominate long poems. The number who actually vote for the Rhysling each year is even smaller. Conversely, the numbers of both nominators and voters have been rising steadily despite a slight decline in total membership—and the number of publications upon which those nominations draw has increased much more dramatically: 34 in 2011, 48 in 2012, and 55 this year. This is very encouraging: if the statistics are to be believed, members are both participating more and reading—or finding speculative poetry that pleases them—in a wider range of publications. Many of which have advertised herein; we encourage you, dear Reader, to support them in turn. There’s been a recent discussion of gender bias (again) in publishing, where males continue to dominate in most venues. As is typical, Star*Line receives twice as many submissions from those with male names as those with female names—since nearly all are via e-mail (except for prisoners, who are not only welcome to submit via postal mail, but need not furnish an SASE), I’m guessing here. I was somewhat disconcerted to realize that unlike Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, another journal for which I am the poetry editor, Star*Line has recently accepted a disproportionately higher number of submissions from men. This is, perhaps, offset by the fact that the reverse holds true for Star*Line’s annual award nominations even more disproportionately. Or perhaps it is not. From a poem in Mobius: I have never said Please, treat the people I love like they are disposable or It’s okay to call her that name or I’ll let this slide the first hundred times but my silence said it for me. Miles Walser, “Negative Space” I’d like to make clear that whatever gender ratio manifests in these pages is not a matter of deliberate policy nor, I hope, a matter of unconscious animus. Unlike many other journals whose rejection letters invariably include the phrase “We receive many more wonderful poems than we can publish,” Star*Line does not receive as many excellent submissions as I would like—or could make space for. I actively work to counteract this status by frequently urging other poets to submit, not only via personal contact, but by posts on websites, listservs, and blogs. Reader, consider submitting if you are not already doing so. Invite other poets to submit; invite your friends—hell, invite your enemies. And perhaps Star*Line 4 April 2013 in doing so you will find common ground. The poet Tracy K. Smith has said (on https://www.pw.org/content/tracy_k_smith_1) “Poetry is a wonderful tool for understanding and changing the way you look at the world,” and she was speaking about writing poetry, not only reading it. Elsewhere* I have said that science-fiction poetry is a subset of poetry, but that is not really true. Non-speculative poetry is actually only a small island floating in the Sea of the Imagination, dwarfed by the splendid waves of that alien ocean and menaced by the fantastic creatures that swim beneath it. It is the quality and content of what’s imagined that changes how we think and, as a result, how we exist. Of course the future approaches inexorably, whether we imagine it or not, but it is important to remember that how we imagine that future is capable of transforming it. What I love shall come like visitant of air … Emily Brontë, “The Visionary” Join me in the future, where all the cool life-forms hang out. —F.J. Bergmann, Star*Line Editor *amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/02/a-broader-view-of-science-fiction-poetry/ Congratulations to Elizabeth McClellan and Samantha Henderson for their Rhysling Award Nominations! Memphis Street Railway Co. v. Stratton: 1915 by Elizabeth McClellan • New Myths June 2012 Quince by Samantha Henderson • New Myths September 2012 Read them under Past Issues at www.newmyths.com Star*Line 5 April 2013 I’m the Stone You Can Squeeze Blood from In my dream, he lives in a house with six pianos and I wish it were seven. I don’t like even amounts of things because they are so uncentered. Also, the knocking that comes from his walls comes in fours. We’re not meant to be, but are, at this moment, very much in love. He appreciates the things I’ve chosen to become good at—namely everything—and his name, I think, is Norman. Noel. It begins with a nonsymmetrical letter, I’m fairly certain. I wake up. I’m so good to come home to, it’s my job. I’m a time keeper, a sanitizer, I live life as typically, as period-correctly as possible, so that other people travelling through time can tune in to my days and not forget where they came from. It’s a common problem—people setting off to the future, jetting back to the past, they get a little wonky sometimes. They forget how many presidents have passed, how to conjugate regular verbs, and whether or not we eat peacocks yet. We do. Each morning I stitch together a dress made of the front pages of every major newspaper. It’s a real time-saver. Ha. Everything to do with time is a joke to me. Usually the cameras are off when I’m sleeping but sometimes someone gets panicky, and I have to wear the pajamas made of almanacs, which are rather uncomfortable.