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  • Literary Bio
  • SPECULATIVE POETRY
  • Awards and Honors
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  • Contact
  • Presenting Your Poetry
  • More
    • Home
    • THEM GONE
    • OTHERWHERES
    • Literary Bio
    • SPECULATIVE POETRY
    • Awards and Honors
    • Publications and Readings
    • Contact
    • Presenting Your Poetry
  • Home
  • THEM GONE
  • OTHERWHERES
  • Literary Bio
  • SPECULATIVE POETRY
  • Awards and Honors
  • Publications and Readings
  • Contact
  • Presenting Your Poetry

About Speculative poetry

Speculative Poetry and Me

I wrote my first speculative poems in the sixth grade at P.S. 156 in Laurelton, NY while studying with the wonderful Mrs. Sylvia Parver. I had read Animal Farm in the 4th grade, 1984 in the 5th grade an was granted permission by my evolved parents to read Brave New World in the 6th grade. Alice in Wonderland was also an influence on the second of my poems as it incorporated the language of Jabberwocky. But the very first verse I remember writing was about  post apocalyptic love:


We'll run, and find a sacred place

where I will kiss your burnt-off face

and you will touch my non existent lips

as the bomb continues to rip

this doomed world


I've written speculative verse ever since, though my speculative verse didn't find a home for itself until the 80s and then not again for 20 years.


Speculative Poetry is:

the primoridal verse, the first verse, the poetry of possibilities. Our earliest recorded literature is speculative poetry:Gilgamesh, Ramayana, The Iliad and Odyssey, and Beowulf for example.  

Speculative poetry’s engagements include: aliens, alternate history, cryptids, cyberfunk, cyberpunk, dystopia, fairytales, fabulism, fantasy, folklore, futurism, horror, magic, monsters, mythology, occult, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, robots, science fiction, shifters, slipstream, solar punk, space opera, steamfunk, steampunk, superheroes, supernatural, sword and sorcery, sword and soul, time-travel, and weird. All poetic forms and scifaiku are welcome.

Speculative Sundays Poetry Reading Series

To fulfill my commitment to SERVE VERSE, I created a speculative poetry reading series.   

Speculative Sundays Reading Series

on Facebook live and Via Zoom

7 to 8 p.m. ET


More information at www.speculativepoetry.com

Nombono: an Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC creator

Won the Pitch Contest!

Now I get to edit an anthology of speculative poetry!  


NOMBONO (Zulu for visionary) was my first and the first of two for 2021! https://sundressblog.com/2021/01/04/2020-anthology-pitch-contest-selection-announced


My second was the historic Eye to the Telescope Issue #42 on the sea.  

https://eyetothetelescope.com/about.html


NOMBONO the first BIPOC Anthology of Speculative Poetry

  


Rhysling Nominated Poems 2025

  

Akua Lezli Hope

akualezli@gmail.com


Rhysling Nominated Poems first Published in 2024


Long Poems

Giant Robot and His Person

( won the 27th Annual Critter Award, published in FIYAH Disability Issue)

Melissa   

published in Bestiary of Blood: Modern Fables and Dark Tales Kindle Edition by Jamal Hodge 



Short Poems

 Generation Ship  

published in Star*Line 47.3, Summer 2024  

 New Homestead  

published in Sublimation: Volume 1, Issue 5, November/December 2024 — Living in Another World  


Files coming soon.

Copyright © 2025 AKUA LEZLI HOPE - All Rights Reserved.




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