| Editorial Speculative poetry is having a moment. According to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), the prestigious Nebula Awards added a category for speculative poetry starting this year: https://www.sfwa.org/2025/02/18/sfwa-presents-get-to-knowthe-road-to-sfwas-new-comics-and-poetry-nebula-awards/. Speculative poets can join the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA), which publishes annual Rhysling and Dwarf Star anthologies (https://www.sfpoetry.com/). The SFPA website lists about a hundred speco magazines and presses, including Analog, Asimov’s, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Star*Line, Strange Horizons, and Uncanny Magazine. In my submissions call for this special issue of Snakeskin, I asked for poems about “robots, other planets, Star Trek, imaginary technologies, utopian and dystopian futures, Octavia Butler, clones, Barbarella, Blade Runner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doctor Who, the singularity, Princess Leia, black holes, the uncanny valley, alien invasions, time travel, soylent green, Zaphod Beeblebrox, sentient microbes, and so on.” I received, and fell in love with, poems on several of these topics, plus others: fairies, fungi, AI, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Frank Herbert’s Dune. Enjoy! Jessy Randall |