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Dwarf Stars Anthology
Dwarf Stars 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 21, 2025
As usual, this is a wonderful collection of ultra short (10 lines or less) speculative poetry. There’s SF, Fantasy and Horror poetry, so something for everyone!
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August 21, 2025As per usual, this year's Dwarf Stars anthology collects the short speculative poems that are under consideration for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association's annual Dwarf Stars award.
It's a smorgasbord of over a hundred short poems, varied in form and content. Here be dragons, monsters, mermaids, ghosts, aliens, astronauts, AIs, robots, and oddities hard to classify, presented in free verse, prose poems, haiku and tanka and monostiches, a golden shovel, a cheuh-chu, a triolet.
My very favorite is Pravat Kumar Padhy's "spring morning," which struck me in just the right way, partly due to the poem's spare wording and partly due to my own idiosyncracies (I love herons).
N.B. I am honored to have a poem in the anthology, but, as per usual, I will not vote for my own work.
About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. In the case of poetry books, for various reasons, I often omit an overall star rating.
It's a smorgasbord of over a hundred short poems, varied in form and content. Here be dragons, monsters, mermaids, ghosts, aliens, astronauts, AIs, robots, and oddities hard to classify, presented in free verse, prose poems, haiku and tanka and monostiches, a golden shovel, a cheuh-chu, a triolet.
My very favorite is Pravat Kumar Padhy's "spring morning," which struck me in just the right way, partly due to the poem's spare wording and partly due to my own idiosyncracies (I love herons).
N.B. I am honored to have a poem in the anthology, but, as per usual, I will not vote for my own work.
About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. In the case of poetry books, for various reasons, I often omit an overall star rating.
August 8, 2025
As a poet, I specialize in micro-poetry of a speculative nature. I've been nominated for the Dwarf Star on several occasions. The Dwarf Star finalists are always a great entry read into what makes scifaiku and other micro-poetry forms so special and rewarding to write.
This year's collection is no exception. The many poets featured in this anthology are wonderful to discover and make for a great poetry experience. If you were ever curious about what speculative poetry is or love haiku-style work, this would be a good fit for your library shelves.
This year's collection is no exception. The many poets featured in this anthology are wonderful to discover and make for a great poetry experience. If you were ever curious about what speculative poetry is or love haiku-style work, this would be a good fit for your library shelves.
August 18, 2025
I will admit to an aesthetic shortcoming when it comes to the SFPA award anthologies. While I like speculative poetry, I find the Dwarf Star anthologies sound but not exciting, and the long poems in the Rhysling anthology have a tendency to leave me cold.
Perhaps it's because this whole collection is short, the poems don't get a chance to breathe when I read them. I suspect many of these were originally in a context that helped give them authority. But jumbled together I seem not to find them exceptional.
My first pass through had me flagging just four poems for voting consideration:
"body swap" by Tracy Davidson
"The Future is Here" by Eugen Bacon
"old junkyard" by Ngô Bình Anh Khoa
and Mary Soon Lee's "What Villains Read" which I liked, but which isn't as strong as others in this What-X-Read series.
Worth reading, especially if you're getting started in speculative poetry.
Perhaps it's because this whole collection is short, the poems don't get a chance to breathe when I read them. I suspect many of these were originally in a context that helped give them authority. But jumbled together I seem not to find them exceptional.
My first pass through had me flagging just four poems for voting consideration:
"body swap" by Tracy Davidson
"The Future is Here" by Eugen Bacon
"old junkyard" by Ngô Bình Anh Khoa
and Mary Soon Lee's "What Villains Read" which I liked, but which isn't as strong as others in this What-X-Read series.
Worth reading, especially if you're getting started in speculative poetry.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews