Elgin Award Eligibility

My book of dark poetry, Luminous Worlds (Dark Regions Press, 2013) is in its final year of eligibility. Free pdfs from me to SFPA members.

Songs of Eretz poem of the day

http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2014/05/poem-of-day-tsunami-child-by-david-c.html

Steve Gordon selected my poem "Tsunami Child" as poem of the day a couple of weeks ago at Songs of Eretz ezine. He helped with relief efforts after the tsunami. I'm so glad he judged the poem authentic.

Review of Luminous Worlds

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/05/poetry-review-luminous-worlds-david-c-kopaska-merkel/

A very nice review of "Luminous Worlds" by Diane Severson Mori. She included audio recordings of five of the poems from the book. She does such a great job at this kind of thing!

Luminous Worlds reviewed

5-star review of Luminous Worlds https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/832166638

Eligible for Elgin nomination; on the Stoker prelim ballot

Luminous Worlds & HWA preliminary ballot

2013 BRAM STOKER AWARD PRELIMINARY BALLOT
Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Vincenzo Bilof – The Horror Show (Bizarro Pulp Press)
Bruce Boston – Dark Roads: Selected Long Poems 1971-2012 (Dark Renaissance Books)
G.O. Clark – Scenes Along the Zombie Highway (Dark Regions Press)
David C. Kopaska-Merkel – Luminous Worlds (Dark Regions Press)
Helen Marshall – The Sex Lives of Monsters (Kelp Queen Press)
Marge Simon and Sandy DeLuca – Dangerous Dreams (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
Marge Simon, Rain Graves, Charlee Jacob, and Linda Addison – Four Elements (Bad Moon Books/Evil Jester Press)
Bryan Thao Worra – Demonstra: A Poetry Collection (Innsmouth Free Press)
Stephanie M. Wytovich – Hysteria: A Collection of Madness (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

For list of all categories see HWA Facebook Page. Thanks to Bruce Boston for the list.

HWA members can get free pdfs of Luminous Worlds for voting purposes.

Luminous Worlds now available as an ebook

My book of dark poetry, Luminous Worlds, is now a $2.99 ebook at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-ebook/dp/B00G799OF0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1382882872&sr=1-1&keywords=luminous+worlds

Need one more nomination!

Luminous Worlds

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

You can get my Stoker-eligible poetry book, Luminous Worlds, from Amazon. Or, signed, from me. HWA members can get a PDF free. It's one nomination away from getting on the preliminary ballot.

Luminous Worlds

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

You can still get my Stoker-eligible poetry book, Luminous Worlds, from Amazon. Or, signed, from me.

Another poem from my new book, Luminous Worlds

Laurentia Burning

A singing in the south
the growing star
its blazing eye calls to you
its friendly winks promise intimate
revelations to come
its light, demure, drops from sight
the sky is clear
and you resume the breakfast hunt
you pause again
and cock your ear
immobile, there is
a singing in the south
a quickening rumble
a great shimmy
and a new sunrise
your train is coming
your iridium, your epitaph
your last, hottest, most memorable
winter's day



Note: The poor dinosaurs never knew what hit hem. Unless the dromeosaurs really DID develop an advanced civilization before the end.


Buy Luminous Worlds through Amazon, or, signed, from me.

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

Or, Paypal to jopnquog [at] gmail [dot] com $13 postpaid

Another excerpt from Luminous Worlds

Ghost Lakes


Deserts sometimes dream of water.
Lost lakes gleam in the noon heat shimmer,
rippling faintly just above the ground –
the juniper sways in remnant currents,
remembers seaweed,
and impertinent fish.
You think you can feel it;
a cool breath chills your sweat,
and your cheek turns with the tide.
The lakes might have lived forever,
but drought came, water drained away,
and the fish crawled into stones to sleep.
You can find them still,
at Green River, in Wyoming,
where incandescent sand blew in on the west wind.
The corpses of lakes filled with camels,
with pronghorn antelope,
with the many wild dancers
for whom the desert was a keyhole,
through which they hastened out of the past,
water drying on their backs,
into the rejuvenated sun.
But on moonlit nights,
sky clear all the way up to the stars,
and coyotes strangely still,
the deserts sometimes dream of water,
and great fish swim, untroubled by the absent sun,
and scorn abandoned hooks,
their ancient scales shining with the moon.


Luminous Worlds on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

Sample poem from Luminous Worlds

Luminous Worlds, my new poetry collection from Dark Regions Press. www.darkregions.com or http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

Here's a sample


Dragon Wind


The City covers a trillion square kilometers;
why create so much artificial real estate?
Existing planets, stars, wouldn't do?
Wind conjugates the verb abandon.
We do understand emptiness, failure,
we've been those places,
but not on this scale,
wind, spiraling through barren streets
like the breath of dragons,
scouring clean what was never soiled,
making new what was never old,
this place is not a place,
those who built it never lived here.
A million blocks encompass all
imaginable forms of architecture,
after that, more of the same –
a hot reptilian wind
howls through the gaping windows
to which it laid claim
a million millennia ago.
How many cultural detectives
have been through here
and found what?
We do know this:
no one knows who made this place,
no one knows why.
Someone or other is always looking:
surely there's a trace,
surely there is a discarded wrapper,
desiccated residue of passion,
graffiti,
surely something has left a mark,
something besides us,
we who come, who go,
who take no comfort in
the wind from an unseen dragon.

Got my copies of Luminous Worlds

They look fantabulous (if that's still a word). & you can order them here: http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

Luminous Worlds

A review

http://www.sfpoetry.com/sl/slreviews.html

of my new book of dark sf & fantasy poetry.

Review Luminous Worlds

If you like my book, please review it on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

"Luminous Worlds" at Amazon

My new poetry collection from Dark Regions Press is for sale now at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364234874&sr=1-1&keywords=Luminous+Worlds+Kopaska

submissions and so on

ETTT is an ezine published by the SF Poetry Assn. The call for submissions for the next issue is out (theme: immigration) & I sent a couple. Reprints are welcome, but I didn't have any that were suitable. I will be reading a few from my last book (The Edible Zoo) & my next book (Luminous Worlds) at the Unitarian church Sunday. I'm going to try to get the kids to help me with "Monkey Stew." Interactive presentations are not my thing, but this poem really needs that. I submitted a few other poems here & there, mostly 6 lines or shorter. And I'm working on a short story, but it's stalled.

Luminous Worlds

It will be $9.95, & will be on sale around the first of March.