Collection
Is My Chainsaw A Heart: 13 Centos (Found Poetry from Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart is a Chainsaw) (collection): available from kith books (click for digital). Foreword by Stephen Graham Jones. Cover by Rowan Fridley. Eligible for the HWA Bram Stoker Award and the SFPA Elgin Award as well as awards for debut collections generally.
Bookstores interested in stocking IMCAH should contact kith: their bookstore sale policy is consistent with the expectations of the average independent bookseller. I have copies I can sign and arrange payment for via the kith portal: just email popelizbet at gmail dot com.
If you cannot afford the $3 digital edition, see the digital page for kiths poetry access for hardship policy. Dream publisher, I love a queer disabled press for queer disabled poetry.
Scholarships, Honors & Awards
Judy Neri Scholarship for Disabled Poets, 2022.
Naked Girls Reading Literary Honors Award, 2011.
Multiple Rhysling Award nominations since 2010. Since change to partially juried in 2024, one short form and two long form poems selected as Finalists for the jury to read in 2024; one poem (Comet, Cow(nota)girl, & A Cry For Cold) nominated for 2025.
Made Henry Zebrowski say “you want to hear something really fucked up?” after a shocking story of a man living with large portions of skull missing due to my delicately phrased explanation of why castration does not assist in ending sex crimes recidivism. (See Side Stories: Hvaldimir the Russian Spy Whale). Evidence based methods even for the most despised endorsed by a huge true crime comedian! Progress!
2025 Poems
ALL 2025 poems except “untitled/oh my body” are eligible for the Rhysling Award. “Patient 10642” is long form by Rhysling criteria; all others are short form. Individual poems from Is My Chainsaw A Heart: 13 Centos are long form and individually eligible.
“Patient 10642,” Salon Sinister 1, Summer 2025. Free digital edition (link to pdf). Paperback edition also available (UK purchase link.) A notaleptic poem.
“The Giant Robot Prefers Not To,” BRAINROT, fifth wheel press, June 2025. To be reprinted in fwp 2025, coming this fall.
“Scylla and Charybdis Call and Respond,” Triangulation: Dark Hearts (Parsec Ink, September 25, 2025). This is a call and response with concrete formatting, a rare type of poem from me I can’t wait for you to see.
“untitled/oh my body,” Libre Lit, March 2025. Fun little riff on hopeless and not useful book by a bad man the body keeps the score, written on the toilet in the wee hours. because I sometimes post cryptically with reference to TBKTS when I’m tracking problems of a void nature.
“Olezkha Turns to Poetry,” Ouch Collective Volume 4 (Spring 2025). A love poem from one of the protagonists of Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest, an early work of queer fiction with 4 bisexual protagonists and first of its kind to become a Hugo Award Finalist for Best Novel, available signed and personalized from Print: A Bookstore or otherwise wherever books or audiobooks are sold.
“Mother Loves the Land and Loves the Sea,” Last Girls Club Magazine, Spring 2025. One of the Mother Cycle.
“Mother Takes a Wife,” GARLAND issue 3, fifth wheel press, April 2025. One of the Mother Cycle.
“Their Eyes Were Watching,” The Cleansing Power of Fire Anthology, Infested Publishing, June 21, 2025. A notaleptic poem.
Anchor Spindrift,” Haven Spec, July 2025. Notional ekphraksis of Seanan McGuire’s novella In The Shadow of Spindrift House, Subterranean Press (out of print but ebook available where ebooks are sold; ditto audio).
2024 Poems
“Reflections of a Foreign Exchange Student, Grown Old,” Utopia Science Fiction, December 2024. Digital and print editions available. The annual December art issue print edition is always a thing of beauty worth the cost.
“A Diner’s Guide to Avoiding Paradox,” beestung, November 2024 issue. Free to read at link. Reprint forthcoming.
“Seething Sun,” light ’em up anthology (fifth wheel press, 2024). Free to read PDF issue. Also available in fwp 2024: an anthology of queer writing. A notaleptic poem. Dedicated to the one and only Bekah Kelso whose song provided the title.
‘Comet, Cow(nota)girl, and a Cry for Cold,” ecopunk literary #2, 2024. Free to read. A notaleptic poem. Nominee for 2025 Rhysling Award, Long Form Category.
“Panikos Revisited,” Strange Horizons, 8 July 2024. Free to read at link. See Panikos entry below.
2023 Poems
“The Later Life of Herr Samsa’s Picture,” The Future Fire, 2023. See Noah Berlatsky’s review in Split Lip Magazine..
“Jupiter, Dave, The Turtles, and the Tube,” Utopia Science Fiction, February/March 2023. Print issue available at link: digital copy forthcoming. For those around for save_dave in the LJ days it’s That Dave and That Land and if that makes no sense to you watch this video about crowdfunding before that was a word because it’ll make you smile or cry or both at the power of proving love, as Doctor Chuck Tingle says.
“The Truth Is As Intimate As The Teeth That Bit Your Legs Off First,” Salt, Sand, Blood: An Anthology of Sea Horror (ed. Elle Turpitt) (2023). 2024 Rhysling Award Nominee. Digital copy below, but the anthology is a delight. Also, hire Elle for editing, she rules. Epigraph from this TikTok by Sean Berry Parsons, and expressive shrugs in the direction of the giant shadow of Stephen Graham Jones.
“Rough Trade,” Dracula: Beyond Stoker 2 (Renfield). Print edition available: check out their issue bundles or read below.
“Harvest,” Eye to the Telescope: Fungi (ed. Avra Magariti). Free to read at link.
“From the Memoirs of Mme. B—,” Corvid Queen (June 30, 2023). Free to read at link.
“Kodakromen,” Small Wonders. Ekphraksis dedicated to the protagonist of Catherynne M. Valente’s 2020 piece Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo, a must-read-or-listen for fans of Weird and sci-fi horror.
“A Good Soul, Really,” Worlds of Possibility. October 2023. 2024 Rhysling Award Finalist, Short Form. See the issue, the recent anthology in print or ebook, or download the poem below (link to pdf). Notional ekphraksis of painting by Enoch Duncan in my private collection. Reprinted in The Best of Worlds of Possibility Poetry Anthology, ed. Julia Rios.
What You Find at The Center, Haven Spec. A notaleptic poem. 2024 Rhysling Award Finalist in Long Form. With so many thanks to Buddy Wakefield for shaking the excess out of this one’s pockets until it made a song like stars falling into the black.
“A Matter of Collective Survival,” Kaleidotrope. One of my many poems about the natural world and the cryptid world both navigating climate change and taking direct action (as the orcas have started doing!).
2022 Poems
‘”Our Lady of Rags and Carbon Steel,” featured on the Blood and Jazz podcast by the excellent Last Girls Club. One of the Mother Cycle. First print rights for this piece are available, feel free to solicit via popelizbet at gmail dot com. Proceeds from this work go to mutual aid for indigent Memphians living outside due to its inspiration coming from them, and when winter comes, it comes hard.
“Huldra in the Big Apple,” Silver Blade. A notaleptic poem. I just love her.
“Taking Care of the Kids,” parAbnormal magazine, December 2022. Notional ekphrasis of two line drawings by Enoch Duncan in my collection called (lovingly!) the nasty little freaks.
“Trained by a Veteran of the Solar Wars,” Utopia Science Fiction, June/July 2022. A notaleptic poem and one for Honest Lewis.
“Sabbatical Somewhere Warm,” Star*Line 45.4. A notaleptic poem. Rhysling Award nominee.
“Packing Light,” Kaleidotrope, Spring 2022. A notaleptic poem.
“In the Time After Shardik,” The Dread Machine, September 2022. A notaleptic poem.
“Questing Done Right: The Goblin Market, Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice 2021. Included in the Eternal Haunted Summer Anthology of work from the magazines first decade. Rhysling Award Nominee.
“For You Were Strangers In Egypt,” Nightmare Magazine, November 2022. Rhysling Award Nominee.
“Passed,” Mother: Tales of Love & Terror (Weird Little Worlds Press, 2022). This anthology was a Bram Stoker Award nominee. The piece is inspired by T. Kingfisher and she knows why.. Signed and personalized copies of the anthology available from me: popelizbet at gmail dot com reaches me.
2021 Poems
“Thanks to Stanislav Petrov for Fairytales About Birds,” Utopia Science Fiction, February 2021. Rhysling Award Nominee.
How the Rose Princes Came to Life, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.
“Field Notes, Found Later,” Chrome Baby. A notaleptic poem. Read by the poet for the Rhysling Nominee showcase.
“A Monstrous Life, Well Lived,” Girls Who Love Monsters (out of print).
“Amphitrite Finds a Confidante,” Water: Selkies, Sirens & Sea Monsters (ed. Rhonda Parrish) (Tyche Books, 2021). Read by the poet for the Rhysling Nominee showcase.
“a word for the day,” Mirror Dance. A notaleptic poem..
“Alecto Chats on Her Smoke Break,” Apparition Lit. For C.S.E. Cooney.
“Fever Dream,” Rejection Letters. 7/19/2021. A notaleptic poem.
“Unplanned Developments,” The Wondrous Real. Best of the Net Nominee.
“Upon the Merger,” (after Catherynne M. Valente’s “Mouse Koan.”)
2020 Poems
“At The Information Desk,” The Wondrous Real. A notaleptic poem.
“Los Días Con Los Muertos,” Rejection Letters, 2020. A notaleptic poem.
“There Must Be Blood,” Rejection Letters, October 2020.
“So Born to Calamity.” Illumen Magazine, Autumn 2020.
“Hydrologic Cycles,” Utopia Science Fiction, August/September 2020. A notaleptic poem.
“Were You There, on Phobos?” Star*Line 43.3. A notaleptic poem.
Nephele, On Friday. Air: Sylphs, Spirits and Swan Maidens (Rhonda Parrish, 2020).
From the Final Writings of Dr. M.E. Claridge. Star*Line 43.2. A notaleptic poem.
Earlier Poems
“Concerning the Curious Burial Customs of the Witches of Megaira,” Interfictions 0nline (November 2014). 2015 Rhysling Award Nominee.
“Common Language,” 2014 SFPA Poetry Contest (2d Place). 2015 Rhysling Award Nominee.
“Memphis Street Railway Co. v. Stratton: 1915,” NewMyths.com (June 2012). 2013 Rhysling Award Nominee.
“Sympathy for the Devil: A Duet in Two Solos,” liner notes, Slightly Below Above Average: A Tribute to Chet Atkins By His Friends. Reprinted in Apex Magazine, December 2014.
“Panikos,” Stone Telling (September 2011). 2012 Rhysling Nominee. Audio formerly at stone telling of reading by S.J. Tucker forthcoming here. See “Panikos Revisited” above.
“The Sea Witch Talks Show Business,” Goblin Fruit (Summer 2011). Reprinted in The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry (ed. R.B. Lemberg) (Aqueduct Press, 2012).
“Down Cycles,” Apex Magazine Issue 27 (2011). 2012 Rhysling Award Nominee. Reprinted in The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry (ed. R.B. Lemberg) (Aqueduct Press, 2012).
“The Walking Man Goes Looking for the Sons of John: 6 Cantos,” Apex Magazine Issue 24 (May 2011). 2012 Rhysling Award Nominee. See “Sympathy for the Devil: A Duet In Two Solos” above.
“Anything So Utterly Destroyed,” Apex Magazine Issue 17 (2009). 2010 Rhysling Nominee. Reviewed on a bonus episode of The Frankencast with reading of the poem.
Press
RFK Jr. Says There Are No Autistic Poets. We Asked An Autistic Poet, Mother Jones, April 18, 2025.
where the monster girls, gays, and theys dance the tarantella