Hugo Awards 2026: Best Poem

Honestly grateful to the Hugo Awards for continuing this category after last year’s trial balloon, and thereby forcing me to think more about and read more poetry.

I’ve discovered that, generally speaking, there are two kinds of poetry I enjoy. One is the story in verse, structured much like a short story but with far stricter word choices. The other is the imagist poem, which attempts to capture a moment in the proverbial thousand words or less. Both categories are represented here, with some poems attempting both, to varying degrees of success.

Closer to the story side was my personal favorite of the bunch, Jennifer Hudak’s The World To Come. Since I generally read the list of nominees in alphabetical order (if I hadn’t encountered them in the wild already,) hers came last, and I’ll freely admit that I was perhaps a little dejected by the time I got to it. None of the other poems had really wowed me, and when I opened this file, I was less than convinced that a poem that began with a verse from Isaiah would manage it either. But this meditation on resurrection was beautiful and subversive and perfectly speculative, and was by far my top choice for this year’s award.

A somewhat distant second is Theodora Goss’ lovely How To Become A Sea Witch. Speaking directly to the reader as instructions on how to embody the magic of the sea, this poem contains beautiful imagery and sly references to other witches of popular imagination. If it, perhaps ironically, lacks a little depth, then that’s more than made up for by the craft of the blank verse.

Craft is also the reason behind my relatively high ranking of Elis Montgomery’s Hex Supply Customer Support Log. I loved the use of rhyme and its subversion in this imagining of a chat log between a customer and company representative over a missing shipment. I didn’t love the use of “lame” as a pejorative, and I thought the themes got jumbled as the poem progressed but overall this is an above average effort at creating something fresh in the poetry field.

Next is a poem that also starts well then fumbles the landing. Mari Ness’ Care For Lightning examines Hera’s life as someone who has had to learn to care for (and presumably tame) the lightning she’s been wedded to. It would be more interesting if the ending didn’t unfortunately read as apologia for abusers. I was also confused as to who was doing the talking and to whom, as Hera is consistently referred to in the third person throughout but someone else has taken on her role by the end? This poem felt like part of a bigger piece and not something that works as a standalone.

The same could be said for Angela Liu’s The Mourning Robot, which is told from the point of view of robots built to mourn the dead. The imagery is striking enough but the robots might as well be statues, and their sole desire is entirely, ahem, unmoving.

Finally, sigh, we have a poetic tribute to Seattle WorldCon in the form of Brandon O’Brien’s Landing: Seattle. I love that WorldCon had (has?) a poet laureate, but like Doug, I tend to side eye the self-referencing nominations which too often run through each year’s Hugo slate. This poem is perfectly fine, but not something I would see being a finalist were it not for the WorldCon people congratulating themselves on its very existence.

And that’s my list for Best Poetry this year! Each entry is linked to (the last you have to scroll down the page to find and doesn’t have a title header, for some tiresome reason. But it’s in the right hand column and starts with “Missile Command?”) so take a peek and lmk how your opinions vary!