The Withering, By Ashley Dioses

 

The Withering, by Ashley Dioses: Jackanapes Press, 135 pages. Poetry.

I picked up a signed copy of this book from the author and read it over about a week to savor the poetry inside. There are 55 poems, divided into 4 sections entitled: A Luminous Darkness, Pale Radiance, Night Cries, and A is for Axe Murderer. In an Afterword, the author tells us a little about her genesis as a poet and about the pieces in the collection. She indicates that these are primarily pieces from early in her writing career, dating back even to high school.  (She has actually had a previous collection of poetry published called Diary of a Sorceress, which contains poems from later in her career.)

The collection is impressive for a writer of such youth. I also wrote some poetry at a young age but nothing as erudite as these. They are definitely not juvenilia, but fully realized and articulate pieces. They are rhyming poems, written around horror themes, and often with a formal structure. It’s a difficult style to master but Dioses moves through them with verve and confidence.

My favorites in the collection are “Obliterate,” “Hollow King,” and  “I am the most Beautiful Angel.” Here’s a quatrain from “Obliterate.”

The stones erode away,

And tales evaporate.

All memories decay,

The years obliterate.

There are also many other wonderful lines in other pieces, such as “My heart and soul are sparrow-black” and “Then scents of smoke, of myrrh, of rum,…”

There’s an outstanding cover by Mutartis Boswell, whose work I don’t remember seeing before but which I imagine I’ll see a lot of in the future. Boswell also did numerous interior illustrations for the book, which are set beautifully to really enhance the presentation of the poetry.

All in all, The Withering is a very professional package filled with some lovingly crafted and memorable poems. If you’re into dark poetry, this is an excellent reading choice.

Sirens Call

The Sirens Call, Issue 35, is out just in time for Halloween. This is a dark fiction, dark poetry ezine that has really good production values and a plethora of creepy/scary stories and poems. It's 144 pages of material, and is free to download. I have three poems in it, "In Wormwood Days of Wither," "Mother Cold-Eyes," and "A Hiss of Angels."

Why not check it out? It costs you nothing. And if you like it there is a place for comments at the publication site, which is here. You just have to click on the magazine cover at the site (not the one below) to download your free PDF.

Best Horror Novels, for Writers

An article by Robert Weinberg, who I've met btw, in On Writing Horror lists and blurbs the 21 horror novels that every aspiring horror writer should read. There are some obvious ones on here, Frankenstein, Dracula, Rosmary's Baby, The Exorcist. There are also some I didn't expect to see on the list, including Burn, Witch, Burn! by Merritt, and The Ghost Pirates by Hodgson, niether of which I've read. The biggest oversight on the list is Ghost Story by Peter Straub, which is still the scariest book I've ever read.

I’ve seen such lists before, of course. I think Stephen King had one in Danse Macbre. Such lists always get me thinking, which is the fun of them. It seems to me, though, that any list that goes beyond about five books will start to reflect more upon the list writer’s personal reading history than on THE MUST READ books. Think about it this way. You are going to become the official horror writer for NASA, and are going to be sent to a primitive world to introduce the populace to the joys of horror fiction. Space is limited and you are allowed to select five horror novels to take with you as your personal “lesson” library. What do you choose? What should you choose?

Here are my selections:
1. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. THE monster book, and still a good read.

2. Dracula, Bram Stoker. There are a lot of good vampire books out there (and plenty of bad) but this one set up the themes for them all. And many of its scenes still carry a lot of horror today. THE vampire novel.

3. The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty. Rosmary’s Baby got there first, but The Exorcist is still the most powerful vision of the devil that we have. THE devil/demonic book.

4. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson. THE ghost story book, and the second scariest novel I’ve ever read.

5. The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney. THE alien invasion book, and you get paranoia in addition.

And now, because I’m a reader and I know myself, I would personally throw away my watch and billfold, pull the metal buttons off my jeans, and even take the cushions out of my shoes to reduce weight so I could get a sixth book on board. And that would be: Ghost Story, by Peter Straub. It’s not actually a ghost story at all, of course, although the movie made it into one. This one had just about everything.

Anyone else up for a list?