Eye to the Telescope 60, Paying Tribute, will be edited by Angela Acosta.

The Zeitpyramide in Germany gains a new block every decade to mark the passage of time until the year 3183. Will future humans remember this art installation, or will it cease to have any meaning by the next millennium?

Paying tribute has come a long way from its ancient origins of paying a ruler or group for safety. We now have tribute concerts, tribute poetry readings, cosplay tributes to anime characters, and all sorts of fan memorabilia. When faced with the reality of the human condition and our own mortality, tributes help convey the love, honor, and complicated emotions we feel towards our elders, ancestors, and famous figures. Stories are passed down through legends and oral histories, becoming the named stars that form constellations that guide land, sea, and space voyagers alike. We may soon pay tribute to the Earth itself from many lightyears away.

From the Voyager missions and the Lunar Codex to U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” heading to the icy moon, humans have started leaving records of our artistic and technological achievements well beyond Earth’s orbit. What epics, statues, and memorials await us in the distant past, changing present, and far future? I welcome all types of tributes to humans, posthumans, terrestrial and xenobiological life, and matter large and small, from a single bacterium that could reside on Europa to red giant stars. Geek out about your favorite science fiction and fantasy fandoms, show some love for your favorite scientists and mathematicians, or show how technology and AI might change how history is told. Your tribute might even take issue with the process of memorialization itself, seeking instead to deconstruct and even reject tributes altogether.

Don’t just pay tribute to the greats; write an ode to your favorite cryptid, a song for a forgotten realm, or dedicate a poem to the first exoplanetary explorers. Be bold and play with tribute’s cousins: parody, pastiche, and satire. I’d be delighted to read a tribute that has intentional historical inaccuracies or one written for a favorite Star Trek or Star Wars character. Give me a time capsule of speculative poems (rhyming, free verse, scifaiku, prose, and more) from the year 2026.

Submission Guidelines

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

• Use the form at https://bit.ly/SFPAettt60 to submit.
• Please submit 1–3 unpublished poems in English (ideally, attached as .docx or .txt) and include a short bio. Translations from other languages are acceptable with the permission of the original poet (unless public domain).
• Inquiries only to ettt60@sfpoetry.org with “ETTT” in the subject line.
• Deadline: April 15, 2026. The issue will appear on May 15, 2026.

Payment and rights

• Accepted poems will be paid for at the following rate: US 5¢/word rounded up to nearest dollar; minimum US $5, maximum $25. Payment is on 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.com/ai-statement.html

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/

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.