From the moment I knew that the print edition of Mythic Delirium was going to end, it was a challenge to figure out what should go in the final issue, No. 30. A retrospective made sense, but how to come up with one? After all, we’ve showcased 524 poems through 29 issues over 15 years, with verse from bestselling authors and newcomers whose first published pieces appeared in our pages — how do you boil that down to make a concise single issue?
 
The answer hit me just a couple weeks ago, and since then this last celebration has come together with lightning speed. I asked Anita to take the lead in editing this final issue. I knew she wouldn’t concern herself with how well-known any particular author was or how many awards or reprints a particular poem might have accumulated — for her the top priority would just be what works well together. And just as I knew she would, she’s assembled a lineup that serves wonderfully as a summation of what we’ve been all about.
 
This issue will not only complete the remaining subscriber obligations for the print version of the zine — its release will also serve as the final reward offered through the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter, for those who pledged at the levels that included a two-year Mythic Delirium subscription. I asked Anita to make her picks from the first 25 issues, so that recent subscribers and Kickstarter backers wouldn’t end up getting some of the same poems twice. All the permissions are in, and I’m delighted to be able to share what she came up with, starting with the very first poem in our very first issue, and concluding with the last poem in our 24th issue, which also happened to be the fifth poem from our pages to win a Rhysling Award. (Note: the order below isn’t the order they’ll appear in Mythic Delirium 30, but it is the order in which they were published.)
 

• “Co-Authoring the Delirium” by Charlee Jacob (Mythic Delirium One, 1998)
• “Vinland’s Lost Shores” by Ann K. Schwader (Mythic Delirium One, 1998)
• “Reflections in a Fading Mir” by Ann K. Schwader (Mythic Delirium 3, Summer/Fall 2000)
• “Back to October” by Jack Fisher and Wendy Rathbone (Mythic Delirium 4, Winter/Spring 2001)
• “October Witches” by Wendy Rathbone and Jack Fisher (Mythic Delirium 5, Summer/Fall 2001)
• “Sedna” by Sonya Taaffe (Mythic Delirium 6, Winter/Spring 2002)
• “Kaddish for a Dybbuk” by Sonya Taaffe (Mythic Delirium 9, Summer/Fall 2003)
• “Mythic Delirium” by Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel (Mythic Delirium 10, Winter/Spring 2004)
• “Saint Neil” by K.S. Hardy (Mythic Delirium 11, Summer/Fall 2004)
• “Three Observations Upon the Discovery that Water Once Existed on Mars” by Bud Webster (Mythic Delirium 11, Summer/Fall 2004)
• “Azurite Mine” by Gary Every (Mythic Delirium 11, Summer/Fall 2004)
• “Lost Over East Texas” by Ann K. Schwader (Mythic Delirium 12, Winter/Spring 2005)
• “Stardust” by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff (Mythic Delirium 12, Winter/Spring 2005)
• “Bal Macabre” by Theodora Goss (Mythic Delirium 15, Summer/Fall 2006)
• “Next Time Write It Down” by Charles M. Saplak (Mythic Delirium 16, Winter/Spring 2007)
• “Song for an Ancient City” by Amal El-Mohtar (Mythic Delirium 19, Summer/Fall 2008)
• “The Next Station” by David T. Manning (Mythic Delirium 20, Winter/Spring 2009)
• “We Took Our Gods” by Jennifer Crow (Mythic Delirium 21, Summer/Fall 2009) (published 2010)
• “Other Fires” by Constance Cooper (Mythic Delirium 21, Summer/Fall 2009) (published 2010)
• “Song of the Bogs” by S. Brackett Robertson (Mythic Delirium 23, Summer/Fall 2010)
• “The Wine of Mercury” by Joshua Gage (Mythic Delirium 24, Winter/Spring 2011)
• “The Wedding Party” by Lucien E.G. Spelman (Mythic Delirium 24, Winter/Spring 2011)
• “The true poem” by Serena Fusek (Mythic Delirium 24, Winter/Spring 2011)
• “The Library, After” by Shira Lipkin (Mythic Delirium 24, Winter/Spring 2011)

 
Mythic Delirium continues of course, in the all-new digital version. Weird to think that by the time this last print issue comes out, we’ll already have released four issues in electronic format.
 
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