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Spectral Realms #4
Spectral Realms No. 4: Winter 2016
This fourth issue of the acclaimed magazine of weird poetry contains outstanding work by some of the leading figures in contemporary weird literature, including Scott Thomas, Wade German, Ann K. Schwader, John Shirley, William F. Nolan, and Darrell Schweitzer. Also included are prominent and rising figures in the realm of weird verse, such as D. L. Myers, David Barker, Adam Bolivar (whose "Fiddler Jack" is another impressive weird ballad, a form he has mastered), David Barker, Chad Hensley, Leigh Blackmore, Kyla Lee Ward, K. A. Opperman, and many others. A section of classic reprints features striking work by the world-renowned poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and W. B. Yeats, along with a Lovecraftian sonnet by David E. Schultz.
The issue also features the first of a two-part essay on "The Poets of "Weird Tales"" by Frank Coffman, a detailed examination of the many poems published in the classic pulp magazine. In this segment, Coffman provides an overview of the poetry featured in the magazine along with an analysis of the topics, themes, and forms that poetry took.
The issue also contains Adam Bolivar's review of K. A. Opperman's recently published volume, "The Crimson Tome, " along with Donald Sidney-Fryer's extensive review of Wade German s acclaimed poetry collection, "Dreams from a Black Nebula.
With this issue, "Spectral Realms" continues to foster the renaissance of weird poetry by the publication of new and old poems as well as trenchant reviews and criticism.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Poems:
The Phosphorescent Fungi / D. L. Myers
Bone Fences / Christina Sng
The Stain / John Mundy
Relative Dark / M. F. Webb
The Merlin of the Suns / Liam Garriock
Who Knocks? / Scott Thomas
The Flower Maidens / David Barker
The Ghosts of Hyperborea / Wade German
The Moon-Gate / Ann K. Schwader
Machen Spoke the Hidden Thing / John Shirley
Deeper Flowers Thrive / Oliver Smith
With a Love So Vile / Ashley Dioses
A Lone Figure / Mary Krawczak Wilson
The Adverse Star / Leigh Blackmore
The Vipers’ Lament / Jeff Burnett
Divine Marriage Comedy / Alan Gullette
And Only Then I Saw / Charles Lovecraft
Up the Stairs / Alicia Cole
A Witch She Is / William F. Nolan and Jason V Brock
The Stone of Sacrifice / Kyla Lee Ward
Metamorphosis / Christina Sng
Phantom / Claire Smith
The Question / Ian Futter
Someone Coming / F. J. Bergmann
Absinthia / K. A. Opperman
Lucinda the Killed / Reiss McGuinness
The Yellow Jester / John Thomas Allen
The Witch’s Cat / Pat Calhoun.
Fiddler Jack / Adam Bolivar
Caressa’s Song / David Barker
The Procession / M. F. Webb
The Lovely Place / John Mundy
Gargoyles for the Cathedral / Kendall Evans
Flyover States / Steven Withrow
Bedtime Story / Chad Hensley
Zombification / Alicia Cole
Souls of Samhain / Leigh Blackmore
Ilvaa / Ashley Dioses.
We Who Have Encountered Monsters / Darrell Schweitzer
Missed Horizons / Ann K. Schwader
The Ghost of Samhain Past / Margaret Curtis
The Poetry of Evil Must Never Be Shouted / Darrell Schweitzer
The Rise of Set / Liam Garriock
The Living Dead / Ian Futter
To My Goddess, Nicnevin / Liam Garriock
Deacon Mercer / Jonathan Thomas
Alastor / Wade German
Weird Tale / Charles Lovecraft
Among the Gargoyles / K. A. Opperman
The Girl with Pennies on Her Eyes / Scott Thomas
The Reunited / Oliver Smith
Graveyard Circumspect / Alan Gullette
Fog of War / Christina Sng
Two Fates / John Mundy
Alchemy / Ian Futter
Werewolf / K. A. Opperman
Panos / Fred Phillips
Water Tears / Mary Krawczak Wilson
The Summons / David Barker
The Witching Hour / Alicia Cole
Classic Reprints:
St. Irvyne’s Tower / Percy Bysshe Shelley
His Dream / W. B. Yeats
Cthulhu / David E. Schultz
Articles:
The Poets of Weird Tales: Part / Frank Coffman
Reviews:
In the Court of Hades / Adam Bolivar
Enlightenment from the Outer Dark / Donald Sidney-Fryer
Two Centuries of Pleasing Terrors / Steven J. Mariconda
On the cover, “Prisoner (Head)” by Botond Reszegh.
The issue also features the first of a two-part essay on "The Poets of "Weird Tales"" by Frank Coffman, a detailed examination of the many poems published in the classic pulp magazine. In this segment, Coffman provides an overview of the poetry featured in the magazine along with an analysis of the topics, themes, and forms that poetry took.
The issue also contains Adam Bolivar's review of K. A. Opperman's recently published volume, "The Crimson Tome, " along with Donald Sidney-Fryer's extensive review of Wade German s acclaimed poetry collection, "Dreams from a Black Nebula.
With this issue, "Spectral Realms" continues to foster the renaissance of weird poetry by the publication of new and old poems as well as trenchant reviews and criticism.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Poems:
The Phosphorescent Fungi / D. L. Myers
Bone Fences / Christina Sng
The Stain / John Mundy
Relative Dark / M. F. Webb
The Merlin of the Suns / Liam Garriock
Who Knocks? / Scott Thomas
The Flower Maidens / David Barker
The Ghosts of Hyperborea / Wade German
The Moon-Gate / Ann K. Schwader
Machen Spoke the Hidden Thing / John Shirley
Deeper Flowers Thrive / Oliver Smith
With a Love So Vile / Ashley Dioses
A Lone Figure / Mary Krawczak Wilson
The Adverse Star / Leigh Blackmore
The Vipers’ Lament / Jeff Burnett
Divine Marriage Comedy / Alan Gullette
And Only Then I Saw / Charles Lovecraft
Up the Stairs / Alicia Cole
A Witch She Is / William F. Nolan and Jason V Brock
The Stone of Sacrifice / Kyla Lee Ward
Metamorphosis / Christina Sng
Phantom / Claire Smith
The Question / Ian Futter
Someone Coming / F. J. Bergmann
Absinthia / K. A. Opperman
Lucinda the Killed / Reiss McGuinness
The Yellow Jester / John Thomas Allen
The Witch’s Cat / Pat Calhoun.
Fiddler Jack / Adam Bolivar
Caressa’s Song / David Barker
The Procession / M. F. Webb
The Lovely Place / John Mundy
Gargoyles for the Cathedral / Kendall Evans
Flyover States / Steven Withrow
Bedtime Story / Chad Hensley
Zombification / Alicia Cole
Souls of Samhain / Leigh Blackmore
Ilvaa / Ashley Dioses.
We Who Have Encountered Monsters / Darrell Schweitzer
Missed Horizons / Ann K. Schwader
The Ghost of Samhain Past / Margaret Curtis
The Poetry of Evil Must Never Be Shouted / Darrell Schweitzer
The Rise of Set / Liam Garriock
The Living Dead / Ian Futter
To My Goddess, Nicnevin / Liam Garriock
Deacon Mercer / Jonathan Thomas
Alastor / Wade German
Weird Tale / Charles Lovecraft
Among the Gargoyles / K. A. Opperman
The Girl with Pennies on Her Eyes / Scott Thomas
The Reunited / Oliver Smith
Graveyard Circumspect / Alan Gullette
Fog of War / Christina Sng
Two Fates / John Mundy
Alchemy / Ian Futter
Werewolf / K. A. Opperman
Panos / Fred Phillips
Water Tears / Mary Krawczak Wilson
The Summons / David Barker
The Witching Hour / Alicia Cole
Classic Reprints:
St. Irvyne’s Tower / Percy Bysshe Shelley
His Dream / W. B. Yeats
Cthulhu / David E. Schultz
Articles:
The Poets of Weird Tales: Part / Frank Coffman
Reviews:
In the Court of Hades / Adam Bolivar
Enlightenment from the Outer Dark / Donald Sidney-Fryer
Two Centuries of Pleasing Terrors / Steven J. Mariconda
On the cover, “Prisoner (Head)” by Botond Reszegh.
- GenresPoetry
146 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2016
About the author
S.T. Joshi
793 books458 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 16, 2021
One's again Spectral Realms brings us new delightful dark twisted poetry. I've come to really love this journals. The are a joy to read.
Among some of my favorite in this volume:
The Moon-Gate by Anna K. Schwader.
Caressa's Song by David Barker.
To My Goddess, Nicnevin by Liam Garriok.
The Girl with Pennies on Her Eyes by Scott Thomas.
The Witching Hour by Alicia Cole.
The Classic Reprints in this volume where lovely. Frank Coffman's article on The Poets of Weird Tales: part 1 was highly informative and a lovely introduction to than unknown to me weird poets.
The reviews in the back of the book where interesting and lead me to some new books too buy.
Among some of my favorite in this volume:
The Moon-Gate by Anna K. Schwader.
Caressa's Song by David Barker.
To My Goddess, Nicnevin by Liam Garriok.
The Girl with Pennies on Her Eyes by Scott Thomas.
The Witching Hour by Alicia Cole.
The Classic Reprints in this volume where lovely. Frank Coffman's article on The Poets of Weird Tales: part 1 was highly informative and a lovely introduction to than unknown to me weird poets.
The reviews in the back of the book where interesting and lead me to some new books too buy.
January 3, 2019
Another great issue of Spectral Realms, which impresses me more with each issue. The mix of contemporary poems and "Classic Reprints" is brilliant, and the articles and reviews are always as good as the poetry itself. S.T. Joshi and Hippocampus Press have really done the weird poetry field a service in publishing such a high-quality journal, and I'm moving ahead to issue #5 with eager anticipation.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews