As a writer I have a very interesting search history. I started out writing short fiction, short stories mostly in the urban fantasy genre. But I have written in a lot of different genres, romance, mystery, science fiction. I do like to research because I learn new things. And let’s face it. Google is a giant rabbit hole we can all get lost in.

This makes it really important to know what you want to search for before you tell Google you feel lucky. When I began researching my genre of poetry, I really didn’t find a lot. Fantasy poetry only finds a few hits. Same for science fiction poetry. I actually had better luck starting out looking at Amazon. I found some anthologies that had many wonderful authors. And there are several anthologies to choose from.

One thing I did come across was a different term. Speculative poetry. You may have heard of speculative fiction. Even as a writer, I sometimes wonder at the definition of this because I see a wide range of things offered as speculative fiction. I was intrigued when I saw speculative poetry. It is fantasy and science fiction poetry. This made me very excited.

So far, I have not come across an anthology that has both sub genres included. At least not in a way that is obvious. Some of the poetry is so beautiful it feels like it is both. The first sci-fi anthology I picked up is Eccentric Orbits, An Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry: Volume I. This was released by Dimensionfold Publishing in 2020. It is well worth the time with imaginative, well-written poems told from many perspectives.

My next read is a fantasy anthology. I’ll save that one for another post. But I do have a something for you before I go. If you want to go looking for some sci-fi poetry, give Eccentric Orbits a try.