Poetry
The best fantasy and dark fantasy poetry being published today on a regular basis is in the quarterly webzine Goblin Fruit, edited by Amal El-Mohtar, Jessica P. Wick, and Oliver Hunter. The best dark poems during 2010 were by Nicole Kornher-Stace, Ruby Katigbak, Jacob Garbe, Carolee Sherwood, and Lisa Bradley. But all the poems are excellent.
Dreams and Nightmares edited David C. Kopaska-Merkel has been around since the beginning of 1986 and during 2010 had a very good dark poem by Robert E. Porter.
Star*Line edited by Marge Simon is the bi-monthly journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and publishes fantasy and horror, along with science fiction poetry. During 2010 there was good dark poetry published by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Polenthe Blake, Adrienne J. Odasso, J. C. Runolfson, and Wade German. Mythic Delirium edited by Mike Allen published three issues in 2010. Issue 22 was guest edited by Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica P. Wick, the co-editors of the aforementioned Goblin Fruit. Throughout the year there was strong dark poetry by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, Sonya Taaffe, Darrell Schweitzer, Jane Yolen, Anna Tambour, Jeannine Hall Gailey, F. J. Bergmann, and Shawna Lenore Kastin. Paper Crow edited by Angela Charmaine Craig is a new poetry magazine with two issues published in 2010. There were notable poems by Joshua Gage, Scott Pearson, and Edgar H. Hix.
The 2010 Rhysling Anthology edited by Jaime Lee Moyer (Science Fiction Poetry Association) contains all the sf/f/h poetry nominated for the Rhysling Award, as the best published in 2009 by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Savage Menace and Other Poems of Horror by Richard L. Tierney (P’rea Press) spans fifty years of the poet’s career, richly evoking the worlds of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J. R. R. Tolkien, and others in more than seventy poems, several published for the first time. S. T. Joshi provides a preface and there are eight interior black and white illustrations by Andrew McKiernan. Diary of a Gentleman Diabolist by Robin Spriggs (Anomalous Books) is a series of wellwrought interconnected prose poems of the ghostly and uncanny. Halloween: New Poems edited by Al Sarrantonio (Cemetery Dance) consists of forty-one poems about the season horror writers and readers love, by Steve Rasnic Tem, David Niall Wilson, Elizabeth Massie, T. M. Wright, Melanie Tem, Tom Piccirilli, Joe Lansdale, and others. Vicious Romantic by Wrath James White (Bandersnatch Books) collects eighteen poems published for the first time by a writer known for the liberal use of grue in novels. Yet his poetry, while certainly not gentle, is restrained. Rich Ristow provides a preface about the skill of writing poetry. Dark Matters by Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books) collects almost fifty poems (six new) of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror by one of the best-known poets in the field. Love Craft by Bryan D. Dietrich (Finishing Line Press) is a well-written collection of thirteen dark poems inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. The Ultimate PerVERSEities by Kurt Newton (Naked Snake Press) is a combination of two earlier poetry chapbooks by the poet plus twenty new poems. Sharnoth’s Spores and Other Seeds by Leigh Blackmore (A Rainfall Publication) contains poetry inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, and Lin Carter.
Stanza Press, a new poetry imprint from PS Publishing, brought out The Complete Poems from Weird Tales, a series of books by three important figures who regularly published in Weird Tales—all three compiled and with an introduction by Stephen Jones: Songs of the Necromancer & Others by Clark Ashton Smith features thirty-nine poems published in Weird Tales between 1923 and 1953; The Singer in the Mist & Others by Robert E. Howard has thirty-seven poems originally published between 1927 and 1939; Hallowe’en in a Suburb & Others by H. P. Lovecraft has forty-one poems published between 1918 to 1952 (several were first published in The Vagrant then reprinted in Weird Tales). The imprint also published Off the Coastal Path: Dark Poems of the Seaside edited by Jo Fletcher, with thirty poems by Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Weldon Kees, Jo Fletcher, Joel Lane, and others, plus Not Quite Atlantis: A Selection of Poems by Donald Sydney-Fryer, with thirty-six poems. All volumes are produced in a beautiful hardcover format.