Nominees for each year's Rhysling Awards are selected by the membership of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Each member is allowed to nominate one work in each of two categories: "Best Long Poem" (50+ lines; for prose poems, 500+ words) and "Best Short Poem" (0-49 lines; for prose poems, 0-499 words). All nominated works must have been published during the preceding calendar year of the awards year. The Dwarf Stars Award is for best speculative poem of 1-10 lines published in the previous year.