Rhysling Award facts for kids
The Rhysling Awards are special prizes given each year for the best poems in science fiction, fantasy, or horror styles. Unlike most awards, which are named after their creators or important people, the Rhysling Awards are named after a character! This character is a blind poet named Rhysling from a science fiction story called The Green Hills of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein.
There are two main awards given out:
- Best Long Poem: This is for poems that are 50 lines long or more.
- Best Short Poem: This is for poems that are 49 lines long or less.
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How Winners Are Chosen
The people who choose the possible winners, called nominees, are members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA). Each member can suggest one poem for each award category.
All the poems that are nominated are then published together in a book called The Rhysling Anthology. After reading the anthology, the members of the Association vote to pick the final winners. Since 2005, the Rhysling Awards have been given out every July at a special event called Readercon.
Even though the "Best Short Poem" category allows very short poems, the SFPA also has another award called the Dwarf Stars Award. This award is specifically for super-short poems, usually between one and ten lines long.
Some Past Winners of the Rhysling Awards
Many talented poets have won the Rhysling Awards over the years. Here are just a few examples of the amazing poems that have been honored in both categories.
Best Long Poem Winners
- 1978 Gene Wolfe The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps
- 1982 Ursula K. Le Guin The Well of Baln
- 1998 Laurel Winter why goldfish shouldn't use power tools
- 2000 Geoffrey A. Landis Christmas (after we all get time machines)
- 2008 Catherynne M. Valente The Seven Devils of Central California
- 2017 Theodora Goss Rose Child
Best Short Poem Winners
- 1978 (tie): Duane Ackerson The Starman ; Andrew Joron Asleep in the Arms of Mother Night ; Sonya Dorman Corruption of Metals
- 1985 Bruce Boston For Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets
- 1999 Laurel Winter egg horror poem
- 2009 Amal El-Mohtar Song for an Ancient City
- 2014 Amal El-Mohtar Turning the Leaves
- 2017 Marge Simon George Tecumseh Sherman's Ghosts
