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Spectral Realms #2
Spectral Realms No. 2: Winter 2015
This second issue of Spectral Realms, Hippocampus Press's acclaimed journal of weird poetry, features all-original poems--sonnets, ballads, vibrant free-verse lyrics, and much else--from such leading writers as John Shirley, William F. Nolan, Wade German, Gemma Files, Ann Schwader, W. H. Pugmire, and many others. It leads off with a lengthy poem by Donald Sidney-Fryer, one of the pillars of the weird poetry movement for the last half-century or more.
Spectral Realms is devoted to the study and analysis of weird poetry as much as it is a showcase for the poetry itself. Accordingly, this issue features Part 1 of Leigh Blackmore's detailed examination of the verse of Leah Bodine Drake, whose A Hornbook for Witches is one of the rarest of books published by Arkham House. The issue also contains incisive reviews of recent books of poetry by Sunni K Brock.
With its generous sampling of poetry both old and new, its articles and reviews, and its elegant and tasteful design, Spectral Realms is the ideal showcase for the renaissance of weird poetry now underway.
CONTENTS:
Poetry
A Spectral Realm Mystery ..... Donald Sidney-Fryer
At the Last of Carcosa ..... Ann K. Schwader
The Spire ..... Chad Hensley
Conundrum ..... Fred Phillips
Fallen: A Lament and Affirmation ..... Jason V Brock
The Dark Road from Yorehaven ..... D. L. Myers
Mummify Me ..... Jonathan Thomas
The Apple ..... Claire Smith
The Song of the Unformed ..... Gemma Files
Occult Agency ..... Wade German
The Promise ..... Darrell Schweitzer
Witch’s Love ..... Ashley Dioses
Haunted ..... William F. Nolan
The Lamp: A Fable ..... John C. Tibbetts
When Rose Petals Fall ..... John Shirley
Among the Ghouls ..... K. A. Opperman
Incantations ..... Michael Fantina
Revenant ..... F. J. Bergmann
Another Knife-Grey Day ..... Michael Kelly
Song for Naughty Children ..... David Barker
Rock On ..... Marge Simon
The Ballad of Jack Keeper ..... Adam Bolivar
Robert Nelson: An Invitation ..... Charles D. O’Connor III
The Desolate Kirkyard ..... Liam Garriock
The Realm of Angels ..... David Schembri
Invocation to Dispel Loneliness on Insomniac Nights ..... Dan Clore
The Final Conversation ..... Ian Futter
The Sire ..... Chad Hensley
Foiled Design ..... Fred Phillips
“The Outsider” ..... W. H. Pugmire
Girls and Their Balloons ..... Stephanie M. Wytovich
Calving ..... Gemma Files
Barn ..... Jonathan Thomas
The Night Is Black and White ..... Leigh Blackmore
Harrow ..... D. L. Myers
Mother Killer ..... Melissa Frederick
Void Music ..... Ann K. Schwader
Lavinia Whateley ..... Darrell Schweitzer
Lines on Reading A. Merritt ..... John C. Tibbetts
The Keeper of the Innsmouth Light ..... M. F. Webb
The Mood of the Moon ..... Wade German
The Cobbled Trail ..... Michael Fantina
The Depths of Enlightenment ..... Sean Elliot Martin
The Bone Bird ..... Mike Allen
A Billion Souls Gaze West ..... David Barker
Furaq ..... Carole Abourjeili
The Blood Garden ..... K. A. Opperman
Tricks ..... Ian Futter
Ligeia ..... Ashley Dioses
Hungry, the Rain-God Wakens ..... Michael Kelly
Legacy ..... Fred Phillips
A Search for Light in Night; A Search for Dark in Day ..... John Shirley
Palimpsest ..... F. J. Bergmann
Kiosk to Kadath ..... Chad Hensley
The Nightmare-Monger ..... Dan Clore
A Devil’s Nursery Book ..... Adam Bolivar
Swampsong ..... Oliver Smith
Beauty and Oblivion ..... K. A. Opperman & Charles D. O’Connor III
Head Ornaments ..... Stephanie M. Wytovich
My Ashen Heart ..... Leigh Blackmore
The Dream Sorceress ..... Michael Fantina
Oblivion’s Daughter ..... David Barker
Purloined ..... Mike Allen
Vexteria ..... Ashley Dioses
The Writer ..... Ian Futter
Classic Reprints
The Skeleton Sexton ..... Francis S. Saltus
The Ballad of Dead Men’s Bay ..... Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Cathedral of Lost Faces ..... Bruce Boston
Articles
“Figures in a Nightmare”—The Poetry of Leah Bodine Drake: Part 1 ..... Leigh Blackmore
Reviews
Some Hits, Some Misses ..... Sunni K Brock
On the cover of this issue, Charles E. Burchfield's “Childhood’s Garden” (1917).
Spectral Realms is devoted to the study and analysis of weird poetry as much as it is a showcase for the poetry itself. Accordingly, this issue features Part 1 of Leigh Blackmore's detailed examination of the verse of Leah Bodine Drake, whose A Hornbook for Witches is one of the rarest of books published by Arkham House. The issue also contains incisive reviews of recent books of poetry by Sunni K Brock.
With its generous sampling of poetry both old and new, its articles and reviews, and its elegant and tasteful design, Spectral Realms is the ideal showcase for the renaissance of weird poetry now underway.
CONTENTS:
Poetry
A Spectral Realm Mystery ..... Donald Sidney-Fryer
At the Last of Carcosa ..... Ann K. Schwader
The Spire ..... Chad Hensley
Conundrum ..... Fred Phillips
Fallen: A Lament and Affirmation ..... Jason V Brock
The Dark Road from Yorehaven ..... D. L. Myers
Mummify Me ..... Jonathan Thomas
The Apple ..... Claire Smith
The Song of the Unformed ..... Gemma Files
Occult Agency ..... Wade German
The Promise ..... Darrell Schweitzer
Witch’s Love ..... Ashley Dioses
Haunted ..... William F. Nolan
The Lamp: A Fable ..... John C. Tibbetts
When Rose Petals Fall ..... John Shirley
Among the Ghouls ..... K. A. Opperman
Incantations ..... Michael Fantina
Revenant ..... F. J. Bergmann
Another Knife-Grey Day ..... Michael Kelly
Song for Naughty Children ..... David Barker
Rock On ..... Marge Simon
The Ballad of Jack Keeper ..... Adam Bolivar
Robert Nelson: An Invitation ..... Charles D. O’Connor III
The Desolate Kirkyard ..... Liam Garriock
The Realm of Angels ..... David Schembri
Invocation to Dispel Loneliness on Insomniac Nights ..... Dan Clore
The Final Conversation ..... Ian Futter
The Sire ..... Chad Hensley
Foiled Design ..... Fred Phillips
“The Outsider” ..... W. H. Pugmire
Girls and Their Balloons ..... Stephanie M. Wytovich
Calving ..... Gemma Files
Barn ..... Jonathan Thomas
The Night Is Black and White ..... Leigh Blackmore
Harrow ..... D. L. Myers
Mother Killer ..... Melissa Frederick
Void Music ..... Ann K. Schwader
Lavinia Whateley ..... Darrell Schweitzer
Lines on Reading A. Merritt ..... John C. Tibbetts
The Keeper of the Innsmouth Light ..... M. F. Webb
The Mood of the Moon ..... Wade German
The Cobbled Trail ..... Michael Fantina
The Depths of Enlightenment ..... Sean Elliot Martin
The Bone Bird ..... Mike Allen
A Billion Souls Gaze West ..... David Barker
Furaq ..... Carole Abourjeili
The Blood Garden ..... K. A. Opperman
Tricks ..... Ian Futter
Ligeia ..... Ashley Dioses
Hungry, the Rain-God Wakens ..... Michael Kelly
Legacy ..... Fred Phillips
A Search for Light in Night; A Search for Dark in Day ..... John Shirley
Palimpsest ..... F. J. Bergmann
Kiosk to Kadath ..... Chad Hensley
The Nightmare-Monger ..... Dan Clore
A Devil’s Nursery Book ..... Adam Bolivar
Swampsong ..... Oliver Smith
Beauty and Oblivion ..... K. A. Opperman & Charles D. O’Connor III
Head Ornaments ..... Stephanie M. Wytovich
My Ashen Heart ..... Leigh Blackmore
The Dream Sorceress ..... Michael Fantina
Oblivion’s Daughter ..... David Barker
Purloined ..... Mike Allen
Vexteria ..... Ashley Dioses
The Writer ..... Ian Futter
Classic Reprints
The Skeleton Sexton ..... Francis S. Saltus
The Ballad of Dead Men’s Bay ..... Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Cathedral of Lost Faces ..... Bruce Boston
Articles
“Figures in a Nightmare”—The Poetry of Leah Bodine Drake: Part 1 ..... Leigh Blackmore
Reviews
Some Hits, Some Misses ..... Sunni K Brock
On the cover of this issue, Charles E. Burchfield's “Childhood’s Garden” (1917).
- GenresPoetry
160 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2015
1 person is currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
S.T. Joshi
796 books457 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.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 21, 2020
While the second edition of Spectral Realms is not the strongest installment in the series thus far, it nonetheless has a handful of standout pieces. Michael Kelly's "Hungry, the Rain-God Wakens" is the star of the show, a grim little work with a beautifully executed sense of poetic rhythm. Other notable verses are from the pens of Ann K. Schwader, D.L. Myers, Gemma Files, and Wade German.
This issue also has its share of less impressive work, more so than is typical of Spectral Realms, a poetry journal that usually maintains a very high standard under the editorship of S.T. Joshi. That said, every issue of Spectral Realms has its rewards, and No. 2 is no exception to that rule.
This issue also has its share of less impressive work, more so than is typical of Spectral Realms, a poetry journal that usually maintains a very high standard under the editorship of S.T. Joshi. That said, every issue of Spectral Realms has its rewards, and No. 2 is no exception to that rule.
June 16, 2021
Spectral Realms No. 2 was my first taste of weird poetry, and what a great taste it was. Beautiful dark and haunting worlds paint it's pages and sick their claws and teeth into you heart and mind.
Among my favorites poems where:
Song for Naughty Children by David Barker.
Among the Ghouls by K. A. Opperman.
The Spire by Chad Hensley.
The Promise by Darrell Schweitzer.
Hunger, the Rain-God Wakens by Michael Kelly.
The articles and reviews found at the end of the journey where highly interesting and informative! I much enjoyed my time reading and re-reading Spectral Realms.
Among my favorites poems where:
Song for Naughty Children by David Barker.
Among the Ghouls by K. A. Opperman.
The Spire by Chad Hensley.
The Promise by Darrell Schweitzer.
Hunger, the Rain-God Wakens by Michael Kelly.
The articles and reviews found at the end of the journey where highly interesting and informative! I much enjoyed my time reading and re-reading Spectral Realms.
December 9, 2015
More great weird poetry !
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews