Tributes carry many names, from homage, dedication, and ode to elegy, encomium, and even Shakespearean sonnets. Historically, paying tribute has often taken the form of solemnly paying respect following the passing of a ruler, celebrating someone’s artistic oeuvre, or remembering a loved one. Tribute poems, songs, events, and memorials all help us grapple with the very human emotions we feel towards those who have come before us, sending our hope to the next generation. They convey power, affection, and, through the possibility of the speculative, can bridge time and space.

As I was reviewing submissions for this issue, four astronauts orbited the moon for the first time in half a century, traveling farther from Earth than humans have ever gone before. Artemis II, just like the Voyager missions, Cassini-Huygens, and Juno before it, piqued the curiosity of the public and scientists alike, reinvigorating interest in landing on the moon and bringing the Solar System and the stars a little closer within reach. Thanks to this fortuitous timing, you will even find scifaiku about Artemis II in this issue. Though these triumphs of human and unmanned spaceflight are great, they are not without risk or tragedy. The poems in this issue capture the disillusionment about the environmental protection of our home world, off-world tributes and sacrifices, lonely tardigrades in deep space, and Earth after human extinction. Earth remains a constant in the background of these poems and, as Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch poignantly said, “But ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”

This 60th issue of Eye to the Telescope is especially meaningful for me because the theme of paying tribute is one that has shaped the direction of my academic research for many years. As a scholar of twentieth-century Spanish literature, I often think about the question of representation and who gets forgotten and remembered. It was a real treat to read poems from nearly three hundred poets whose tributes were humorous, deeply solemn, wistful, and full of love for their favorite fandoms, scientists, and planets. Many thanks as well to Brian Garrison and F. J. Bergmann for their guidance and support in preparing this issue.

The twenty-two poems that appear in this issue represent the breadth of poetic tributes across the many realms of speculative poetry. You’ll find recognizable characters like Maul, hungry vampires, a touching tribute to a feline familiar, and an orrery of tributes set in our Solar System. I hope readers will hold close what matters most to them as they read these tributes that, in time, may be too weatherworn to find.