Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Poems for Morpheus

Over the last few months, I have been writing a cycle of poems about the Greek goddess Nyx, Night, who was considered the mother of Dream and Death and a multitude of other deities (not made fewer by the fact that I often mix Greek and Roman names or use them interchangeably), and about her divine offspring. So far, there are about twenty of these poems, some already accepted for publication (The Tally Of Forgotten Dreams Kept By Morpheus, forthcoming in Dreams & Nightmares and Sister Night, forthcoming in Bull Spec), some still in the submission queue, and others waiting to be polished. And of course, there are still those Dream Cycle poems that haven't been written yet.

At any rate, I like the idea of treating night, darkness, and dream in poetry, it's something that seems to appeal to me personally and I consider this one an ongoing project...

...just like the poems inspired by Tarot, difficult to write if you just like the idea of Tarot but haven't the first clue about what the individual cards represent. Inspiration through research! Research! That thing that always makes me wish I had several heads and a few more hands to go with them, for writing simultaneously, you understand. The first Tarot poem I successfully completed is the Major Arcana (forgot number): Death.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Halloween Is Coming Soon!


And to really celebrate the occasion--I mean more than just any other year--Reaven Electrick Ink will release a jittery creepy anthology this year: Jack-o'-Spec: Tales of Halloween and Fantasy, edited by Karen A. Romanko.

Why should I mention this, you ask? Well, for one thing, I have two poems in there, for another, a whole bunch of other people have even more awesome/creepy jittery stuff in there. Also, it's Halloween, and you need to start giving people treats that actually broaden their horizons (Halloween really will be taken off your normal map of the usual here, on to other places where even strange is stranger) and lower their blood sugar. And creep them out:


"Reading Jack-o'-Spec is like stepping into a Halloween party that's
been going on for 2,000 years. There's something delightfully pagan about these stories and poems, something that captures Halloween's dark,autumn atmosphere. Whether it's a mad scientist invoking Halloween ghosts on Mars, boys trapped in not one but two haunted houses, or a rich evocation of poetic seasonal spirits, Jack-o'-Spec has somethingfor all Halloween lovers." -- Lisa Morton, Author, The HalloweenEncyclopedia