Sherry Chandler

I am proud to announce that my daughter-in-law, Isabel Pelech, has been nominated for the 2007 Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. The SFPA has awarded Rhyslings, named for the blind poet Rhysling in Robert Heinlein’s “The Green Hills of Earth,” since 1978. Previous winners have included Ursula K. Le Guin and Thomas M. Disch. You can find a complete list of winners at the link.

Isabel was nominated for her prose poem “Clock Function,” which originally appeared in Dreams and Nightmares. “Clock Function” will be reprinted in the 2007 Rhysling Anthology:

The nominees for each year’s Rhysling Awards are selected by the membership of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Each member is allowed to nominate one work in each of the two categories: “Best Long Poem” (50+ lines) and “Best Short Poem” (0-49 lines). All nominated works must have been published during the calendar year for which the present awards are being given. The Rhysling Awards are put to a final vote by the membership of the SFPA using reprints of all the nominated works presented in this voting tool called The Rhysling Anthology. The anthology allows the membership to easily review and consider all nominated works without the necessity of obtaining the diverse number of publications in which the nominated works first appeared. The Rhysling Anthology is also made available to anyone with an interest in this unique compilation of verse from some of the finest poets working in the field of SF/F/Horror poetry.

The winning works are regularly reprinted in the Nebula Awards Anthology from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., and are considered in the SF/F/H/Spec. field to be the equivalent in poetry of the awards given for “prose” work–achievement awards given to poets by the writing peers of their own field of literature.

We received Reginal Hill’s latest novel last week, airmail from Britain, and it is a pure delight.

The main question is: Has Our Goateed Author finally tired of having his plump child abused in a telly series and decided to round out Fat Andy’s existence with a little slap at conventions? We remain mute about that, but can say that unplumbed depths of all his regular characters surface in this novel even as should the Kraken at the End of Times.

Not least of these revelations are those concerning PC Hector, whose very inablility to communicate verbally is part of a special gift of genius–a secret only DCI Pascoe knows and which nearly gets them both killed after he incautiously vouches for Hector’s powers of observation to certain Funny Buggers.

After Dalziel is severely injured in a blast outside a Terrorist warren, Pascoe fixes on the superstitious notion that only if he can uncover those responsible for the blast–a newly reconstitued Knights Templar revenge sect that targets British Muslims– will Andy survive his coma. But is this simple revenge, no better than the acts of the Templars themselves? Pascoe, always feeling like an attendant lord regardless of how well he channels himself in to Andy’s 7-league boots, worries that he is not a Red-Cross Knight but a Quixote, “creating confusion rather than resolving it”. And he may indeed have run a bit mad like Hieranymo. He argues with Wield and even betrays Ellie’s trust to get at the truth. So she in turn witholds some information which could resolve all mysteries, principally to protect Peter’s mental and physical wellbeing. Personal concerns can outweigh those of the Job, a lesson Andy had given many living examples of through the years.

Tony Hillerman is fond of noting in his novels that Navaho culture explains criminal actions by an individual by saying “he acts as if he has no kin.” Reginald Hill’s mythic mid-Yorkshire must contain more inbreeding than Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha Co. Not since the novels of Dickens are there so many coincidences and close ties of family–part of the delight in these novels, which are subtle but unashamed parodies of most of the forms of Western literature and several of the East.

When injured Pascoe gimps out with his daughter’s little dog for an unauthorized root around in the debris of the blast site, and the dog finds an Important Clew, Hill invites us to laugh at the improbability of this event–straight out of Boy’s Own by way of Dickens, or mebbe Pratchett. But there is a grim delight in this tale and it bears as much comparison to that of the Pardoner’s. It is as well crafted as any of Chaucer’s.

This post was written by poppysmatus.

For Immediate Release from the KAC:

FRANKFORT, KY — The Kentucky Arts Council will be hosting the state finals for the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest. On March 13 at 10:00 a.m. EST, 15 high school students from 15 high schools will compete at the Hill Student Center on the campus of Kentucky State University, Frankfort. The winner of this competition will advance to the National Finals in Washington, DC on April 30 and May 1, 2006, where $50,000 in scholarships and school prizes will be awarded.

The competition presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Art and the Poetry Foundation, is part of a national program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance, and competition.

The winning student from each of the 15 schools in Kentucky that will compete are: Robbie McMath, Beechwood High School; Joe Gunning, Bethlehem High School; Robin M. Owens, Carroll County High School; Jake Holder, Collegiate High School; Brent Morrison, Glasgow High School; Megan Gandy, Hart County High School; Hannah Jacobs, Harvest Christian Academy; Tasia York, Monticello Independent School; Sarah Whisman, Montgomery County High School; Erica Martin, Ohio County High School; Danielle DiMuro, Simon Kenton High School; Traci Stewart, Powell County High School; Dean Muir, Trimble County High School; Emmanuel Nfor, Western Hills High School and Lauren Oberg, Westport TAPP.

Kentucky Poet Laureate Emeritus Richard Taylor, poet Crystal Wilkinson and poet Sarah Gorham will serve as judges. Special guest John H. Hewett Director of Development for the National Endowment for the Arts will also attend the Kentucky Finals and award the state’s finalists.

“Poetry Out Loud has been a wonderful opportunity to engage Kentucky high school students with great poetry and the literary arts,” said Kentucky Arts Council Executive Director Lori Meadows. “The Arts Council is pleased to be a part of this national program.”

For more information, visit www.poetryoutloud.org.