Eye to the Telescope 63, Borders, will be edited by Lilith Acadia.
A speculative concept we take for granted in everyday life, borders are powerful imaginary means of dividing our world—or our world from other worlds. We transect the physical and abstract with borders traced between places, peoples, states of being, genres, and concepts. Borders figure ideological fictions to help us understand what it means to be human, alive, here, now, sentient, moral, and not the other.
Whether you find inspiration in our contemporary political conflicts over the fiction of political boundaries invented with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, or nonhuman borders like the Wallace Line in Southeast Asia, or pushing the borders of your imagination, send your speculative poetry that considers, defines, crosses, negates, or otherwise plays with borders.
In your poetic borderlands, may you find Gloria Andaldúa's “wild tongues,” which she says “can't be tamed; they can only be cut out.”
Submission Guidelines
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
- Use the form at https://bit.ly/SFPAettt63 to submit.
- Please submit 1–3 unpublished poems in English (ideally, attached as .docx or .txt).
- REQUIRED: Include on page 1 a brief cover letter that includes your bio and links to your online presence (social media, website, etc.).
- Translations from other languages are acceptable with the permission of the original poet (unless public domain).
- Inquiries only to ettt63@sfpoetry.org with “ETTT” in the subject line.
- Deadline: January 15, 2027. The issue will appear on February 15, 2027.
Payment and rights
- Accepted poems will be paid for at the following rate: US 7¢/word rounded up to nearest dollar; minimum US $7, maximum $30. Payment will be made within a month of publication.
- The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association normally uses PayPal to pay poets, but can also send checks.
- Eye to the Telescope is an online publication. Therefore, First Electronic Rights (for original unpublished poems) are being sought.
Who can submit?
Any human writing speculative poetry. Please no AI-generated works or AI-human collaborations. Note SFPA’s new AI policy: https://sfpoetry.org/wp/about/sfpa-statement-on-generative-ai/
What is Speculative Poetry?
Speculative poetry is poetry which falls within the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror, plus some related genres such as magic realism, metafiction, and fabulation. It is not easy to give precise definitions, partly because many of these genres are framed in term of fiction rather than poetry.
A good starting point is “About Science Fiction Poetry” by Suzette Haden Elgin, the founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Despite its title, this article is applicable to all forms of speculative poetry.
Tim Jones, editor of Issue 2, had a go at defining science fiction poetry on his blog, in two parts (These blog posts date from 2009, and the Voyagers anthology has since been published. These posts do refer specifically to science fiction poetry, rather than the broader field of speculative poetry.):
timjonesbooks.co.nz/2009/02/08/what-is-science-fiction-poetry-part-1-definition/
.timjonesbooks.co.nz/2009/02/15/what-is-science-fiction-poetry-part-2-history/a
What Is the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association
(SFPA)?
As the SFPA says on its website at sfpoetry.com, “The Science Fiction Poetry Association was founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction poetry. What is sf poetry? You know what they say about definitions—everybody has one. To be sure, it is poetry (we’ll leave that definition to you), but it’s poetry with some element of speculation—usually science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Some folks include surrealism, some straight science.”
See the SFPA site for lots more information—and please consider joining.
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Interested in editing an issue of Eye to the Telescope? See the Editors’ Guidelines for information and requirements.
