Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song
The Aurora Awards are granted annually by the Canadian SF and Fantasy Association and SFSF Boreal Inc. The Award for Best Poem/Song was first awarded in 2011 when the Prix Aurora and Prix Boreal merged into one. Previously, poems had been recognized under the Best Short Fiction category, and songs had been nominated in the Best Related Work category. The award is only granted in the English-language Awards, with the equivalent awards for French-language poetry coming under the Best Short Fiction category, and music coming under the Best Audiovisual Artistic Creation category (which does not have a direct English-language equivalent).
No award was given in 2017, as there were insufficient nominations.
Winners and nominees
[edit]* Winners and joint winners
| Year | Author(s) | Work | Publisher/Publication | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Carolyn Clink* | "The ABCs of the End of the World" | A Verdant Green | Winner | [1] |
| Sandra Kasturi | "Let the Night In" | Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead | Finalist | [1] | |
| Colleen Anderson | "Of the Corn: Kore's Innocence" | Witches & Pagans (#21) | Finalist | [1] | |
| Robert J. Sawyer | "The Transformed Man" | Tesseracts (Vol. 14): Strange Canadian Stories | Finalist | [1] | |
| Helen Marshall | "Waiting for the Harrowing" | ChiZine (#45) | Finalist | [1] | |
| 2012 | Helen Marshall* | "Skeleton Leaves" | Kelp Queen | Winner | [2] |
| Colleen Anderson | "A Good Catch" | Polu Texni, Apr 2011 | Finalist | [2] | |
| Sandra Kasturi | "Ode to the Mongolian Death Worm" | ChiZine (#47) | Finalist | [2] | |
| Heather Dale & Ben Deschamps | "Skeleton Woman" | Fairytale | Finalist | [2] | |
| Carolyn Clink | "Zombie Bees of Winnipeg" | ChiZine (#47) | Finalist | [2] | |
| 2013 | David Clink* | "A Sea Monster Tells His Story" | Literary Review of Canada, Jul/Aug 2012 | Winner | [3] |
| Helen Marshall | "The Ghost of Birds" | Phantom Drift 2: Valuable Estrangements | Finalist | [3] | |
| Leah Bobet | "Hold Fast" | Strange Horizons, Jun 11, 2012 | Finalist | [3] | |
| Sandra Kasturi | "Roc" | Come Late to the Love of Birds | Finalist | [3] | |
| Carolyn Clink | "Zombie Descartes Writes a Personal Ad" | Tesseracts (Vol. 16): Parnassus Unbound | Finalist | [3] | |
| 2014 | Eileen Kernaghan* | "Night Journey: West Coast" | Tesseracts (Vol. 17): Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast to Coast | Winner | [4] |
| Peter Storey | "Awake" | Urban Green Man | Finalist | [4] | |
| David Clink | "A City of Buried Rivers" | Literary Review of Canada, Nov 2013 | Finalist | [4] | |
| Helen Marshall | "The Collected Post Cards of Billy the Kid" | Postscripts to Darkness (#4), Oct 2013 | Finalist | [4] | |
| Amal El-Mohtar | "Lost" | Strange Horizons, Feb 25, 2013 | Finalist | [4] | |
| Amal El-Mohtar | "Turning the Leaves" | Apex Magazine (#55), Dec 2013 | Finalist | [4] | |
| 2015 | Tony Pi* | "A Hex, with Bees" | Tesseracts (Vol. 18): Wrestling with Gods | Winner | [5] |
| Helen Marshall | "Aversions" | Goblin Fruit, Summer 2014 | Finalist | [5] | |
| David Clink | "The Machine" | Tesseracts (Vol. 18): Wrestling with Gods | Finalist | [5] | |
| Amal El-Mohtar | "The New Ways" | Uncanny (#1), Nov/Dec 2014 | Finalist | [5] | |
| David Clink | "The Perfect Library" | If the World Were to Stop Spinning | Finalist | [5] | |
| 2016 | Naru Dames Sundar* | "Origami Crane" / "Light Defying Spaceship" | Liminality (#5) | Winner | [6] |
| David Clink | "Elegy for WLC" | The Dalhousie Review (94:3) | Finalist | [6] | |
| David Clink | "Portrait" | On Spec (#99) | Finalist | [6] | |
| Sandra Kasturi | "Typhon & Echidna: A Love Story" | Gods, Memes, and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary | Finalist | [6] | |
| Sandra Kasturi | "Venice Letting Go" | Postscripts to Darkness (#6), Apr 2015 | Finalist | [6] | |
| 2017 | NO AWARD GIVEN; INSUFFICIENT NOMINEES | ||||
| 2018 | Matt Moore* | "Heaven Is the Hell of No Choices" | Polar Borealis (#4), Jul/Aug 2017 | Winner | [7] |
| David Clink | "After Midnight" | Tesseracts (Vol. 20): Compostela | Finalist | [7] | |
| J. J. Steinfeld | "The Canadian Small-Town Denizen and the Distant-Planet Space Traveller" | 49th Parallels | Finalist | [7] | |
| Catherine Girczyc | "Card" | Tesseracts (Vol. 20): Compostela | Finalist | [7] | |
| Rhea Rose | "Cruising Glaciers" | 49th Parallels | Finalist | [7] | |
| Lynne Sargent | "Meat Puppets" | Polar Borealis (#4), Jul/Aug 2017 | Finalist | [7] | |
| Lee F. Patrick | "Shadows in the Mist" | Polar Borealis (#4), Jul/Aug 2017 | Finalist | [7] | |
| 2019 | Sarah Tolmie* | "Ursula Le Guin in the Underworld" | On Spec (#107) | Winner | [8] |
| Shannon Allen | "Echoes" | By the Light of Camelot | Finalist | [8] | |
| Vanessa Cardui | "How My Life Will End" | Shades Within Us: Tales of Migrations and Fractured Borders | Finalist | [8] | |
| Leah Bobet | "Osiris'" | Uncanny (#25), Nov/Dec 2018 | Finalist | [8] | |
| Sandra Kasturi | "Trips to Impossible Cities" | Amazing Stories, Winter 2018 | Finalist | [8] | |
| 2020 | Swati Chavda* | "At the Edge of Space and Time" | Love at the Speed of Light | Winner | [9] |
| Sora* | "Bursts of Fire" | — | Winner | [9] | |
| Lynne Sargent | "Beauty, Sleeping" | Augur (#2.2), August 2019 | Finalist | [9] | |
| Tyler Hagemann | "The Day the Animals Turned to Sand" | Amazing Stories, Spring 2019 | Finalist | [9] | |
| Clara Blackwood | "The Girl Who Loved Birds" | Amazing Stories, Spring 2019 | Finalist | [9] | |
| David Clink | "Steampunk Christmas" | Star*Line, Fall 2019 | Finalist | [9] | |
| Francine P. Lewis | "Totemic Ants" | Amazing Stories, Fall 2019 | Finalist | [9] | |
| 2021 | Jo Walton* | "Nidhog" | The Book of Dragons | Winner | [10] |
| Dominik Parisien | "Arachnoid Cyst" | This Magazine, Mar/Apr 2020 | Finalist | [10] | |
| David Clink | "Back Story" | Strange Horizons, Sep 2020 | Finalist | [10] | |
| Leah Bobet | "The Death of the Gods" | Uncanny (#32), Jan/Feb 2020 | Finalist | [10] | |
| Y. M. Pang | "Electra" | Arsenika, Win 2020 | Finalist | [10] | |
| Lynne Sargent | "Hamilton Harbour" | A Refuge of Tales | Finalist | [10] | |
| Beth Cato & Rhonda Parrish | "he scores" | Star*Line, Spring 2020 | Finalist | [10] | |
| Colleen Anderson | "Masquerade" | On Spec (#115) | Finalist | [10] | |
| 2022 | Carolyn Clink* | "Cat People Café" | Polar Starlight (#3), Oct 2021 | Winner | [11] |
| Tiffany Morris | "Crossroads" | Nightmare (#110), Nov 2021 | Finalist | [11] | |
| Matt Moore | "My Pillow Eats Screams" | Polar Starlight (#4), Dec 2021 | Finalist | [11] | |
| Yilin Wang | "The Reality of Ghosts" | Fantasy (#70), Aug 2021 | Finalist | [11] | |
| James Grotkowski | "Them + Us" | Polar Borealis (#19), Aug/Sep 2021 | Finalist | [11] | |
| Richard Van Camp | "Widow" | Food of My People | Finalist | [11] | |
| 2023 | Melissa Yuan-Innes* | "Rapunzel in the Desert" | On Spec Win 2022 | Winner | [12] |
| Colleen Anderson | "After the Apocalypse" | NewMyths Dec 2022 | Finalist | [12] | |
| James Grotkowski | "Ghost Stories" | Polar Starlight 6 | Finalist | [12] | |
| Terese Mason Pierre | "In Stock Images of the Future, Everything is White" | Uncanny May/Jun 2022 | Finalist | [12] | |
| Rhonda Parrish | "Poltergeist" | Star*Line Spr 2022 | Finalist | [12] | |
| Dominik Parisien | "a sinkhole invites a street to consider its future" | Uncanny Jan/Feb 2022 | Finalist | [12] | |
| Geoffrey W. Cole | "Three Herons" | Polar Starlight 5 | Finalist | [12] | |
| Lynne Sargent | "The Wolf of Your Passions" | Augur 5.2 | Finalist | [12] | |
| 2024 | Tiffany Morris* | "Awakening" | Nightmare Nov 2023 | Winner | [13] |
| Kelley Tai | "As a, I want to, so I can" | Heartlines Spec Spr/Sum 2023 | Finalist | [13] | |
| Lynne Sargent | "Lying Flat" | Strange Horizons Oct 2023 | Finalist | [13] | |
| Dominik Parisien | "predictive text" | Augur Jun 2023 | Finalist | [13] | |
| David Schultz | "Scarecrow" | Polar Starlight Mar 2023 | Finalist | [13] | |
| Ai Jiang | "A Siren's Call, A Banshee's Wail, A Grandmother's Dream" | Uncanny Sep/Oct 2023 | Finalist | [13] | |
| 2025 | Y.M. Pang | "Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka" | Invitation: A One-shot Anthology of Speculative Fiction | Winner | [14][15] |
| Shantell Powell | "Angakkuq" | On Spec Magazine, Vol 24, Issue 130 | Finalist | [16] | |
| Beth Cato and Rhonda Parrish | "Her Favourite" | Star*Line, Vol 47, Issue 4 | Finalist | [16] | |
| J.D. Dresner | "Horizon Events" | Polar Starlight, Issue #15 | Finalist | [16] | |
| Lynne Sargent | "A Thirst for Adventure" | Polar Borealis, Issue #28 | Finalist | [16] | |
| Carolyn Clink and David Clink | "Trip Through the Robot" | Giant Robot Poems: On Mecha-Human Science, Culture & War | Finalist | [16] | |
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e "2011 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e "2012 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e "2013 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e f "2014 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e "2015 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e "2016 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e f g "2018 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e "2019 Aurora Awards". sfadb.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
- ^ a b c d e f g "sfadb: Aurora Awards 2020". www.sfadb.com. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "sfadb: Aurora Awards 2021". www.sfadb.com. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
- ^ a b c d e f "2022 Aurora Awards Winners". Locus Online. 2022-08-15. Retrieved 2025-10-18.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "2023 Aurora Awards and CSFFA Hall of Fame Inductees". Locus Online. 2023-08-21. Retrieved 2025-10-18.
- ^ a b c d e f "2024 Aurora Awards Winners". Locus Online. 2024-08-12. Retrieved 2025-10-18.
- ^ "2025 Aurora Awards Winners". Locus Online. 2025-08-11. Retrieved 2025-10-18.
- ^ "These creators won Aurora Awards, which recognize Canadian sci-fi and fantasy writing". Aug 13, 2025. Retrieved August 16, 2025.
- ^ a b c d e "2025 Aurora Awards Ballot". April 16, 2025. Retrieved July 16, 2025.