Horror Writers Association's Poetry Showcase Volume IV

This post is shamefully ten months overdue.  However, in my defense, ten months ago I was helplessly self-absorbed in writing a long poem that, at the time, was my greatest obsession—from March until July it occupied almost every passing thought.  Even more bizarrely this uncontrollable obsession was plaguing my dreams and causing me writer nightmares, which mainly consisted of reoccurring visions of being full of interesting ideas yet having nothing to write them down on.  I believe these nightmares stemmed mostly from occasions at the library with my old and tired laptop and not securing a table near an electrical outlet, which would cause me almost maniacal anxiety—I would literally sweat with rage when people would sit at one and have hours-long conversation about the most trifling of petulant knavery and peasant-affairs.

Anyway, before I digress about something else such as the selfish creativity of poetic self-absorption or perhaps an even longer tirade about how my obsession last year was all for naught for no proper publishing house will ever want such fantasy verse, let me get to the point of this little blog post’s raison d'être:  my publication in the Horror Writers Association’s Poetry Showcase Volume IV.  Among my meager four publications last year, this poem, titled “My Little Green Secret”, was by far the most important and dearest to my heart—not only because it was selected among the Top 3 of all submissions which included making the cover of the anthology that published my first poem just a year prior, but also because I actually enjoyed writing it.  Sometimes poetry does not come “as naturally as the Leaves to a tree”[1] and can be rather painful to work out.  Other times it can be a little too ethereal and esoteric for some (even for myself!) and have no real meaning other than whatever mysterious thoughts were passing through my mind at the time—this is not always a bad thing since proper poetry is oftentimes born from this random brooding and musing, but sometimes—just sometimes—my strangeness can be a bit much.  And because of this strangeness that creeps into my writing every now and then, combined with other reasons and inspirations (mainly from rereading Tolkien), last year I began writing more narrative poetry which, as the term implies, aims to tell an actual story complete with a clear beginning, middle, and end.  I like to believe that with this poem, and in just 35 lines, I was able to capture this sort of story-telling quality with at least a somewhat clear beginning, middle, and unquestionably disturbing end, and for that I am somewhat satisfied.

And to add to my somewhat-satisfaction levels—I admit it, I’m never satisfied—the satisfaction gods blessed me with even more somewhat-satisfaction by revealing that this poem along with another poem of mine, titled “Ghosts of 1816” (see my 2017 post about it here: http://clayfjohnson.blogspot.com/2017/05/spectral-realms-ghosts-of-1816.html), were both nominated for a Rhysling Award by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association.  Although I am both surprised and honored to have been nominated, the ever-unsatisfied and inveterate pessimist that I am believes nothing will come of it.

You can read “My Little Green Secret” and the other two featured poems by clicking on the image below—the illustration is titled “The Arsenic Waltz” (first appearing in Punch in 1862) and actually somewhat inspired the poem, along with something else that I shall never admit.  If, however, clicking on images of skeletons is not your thing, I’ll copy and paste the written link directly below it.

Or click this link to read “My Little Green Secret”: http://horror.org/2017-hwa-poetry-showcase-featured-poems/

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[1] From John Keats’s letter to his publisher John Taylor, dated February 27, 1818. The section of the letter in question, and in which I adore beyond measure, is the following:

“First, I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity; it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance. Second, its touches of Beauty should never be half way, thereby making the reader breathless instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him, shine over him and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the Luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it, and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

John Taylor and his business partner James Augustus Hessey, forming Taylor & Hessey, at 93 Fleet Street, London, not only published Keats, but also Coleridge, De Quincey, Hazlitt, Lamb, and Carlyle. According to the Selected Letters of John Keats, edited by Grant F. Scott based on the texts of Hyder Edward Rollins, Keats “respected and liked both men, and they in turn were thoroughly convinced of his greatness. They made him welcome in their homes, introduced him to many interesting men, defended him against hostile reviewers, lent him books, and raised the necessary funds that made the Italian trip possible.”