Ann K Schwader

This nineteenth issue of Spectral Realms contains the customary array of diverse and riveting poetry by today's leading weird poets, including Ann K. Schwader, Wade German, Scott J. Couturier, Ian Futter, and Ngo Binh Anh Khoa. David Barker contributes two more poems to his ongoing series of reimaginings of Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth. Oliver Smith looks at Frankenstein in an innovative way. Frank Coffman tells a miniature weird tale in a four-sonnet cycle, "A Cabin in the Wood." Carl E. Reed, Andrew White, and Christian Dickinson draw upon ancient folklore for their brooding poems. Maxwell I. Gold contributes three of his cosmic prose poems, while Jay Sturner and Liam Garriock add their own distinctive prose poems. Two classic reprints (by Erasmus Darwin and Thomas Hardy), along with S. T. Joshi's review of a new edition of the obscure American Decadent poet Lee Roy J. Tappan, conclude the issue.

As Hippocampus Press's award-winning weird poetry journal Spectral Realms completes its ninth year of publication, it continues to feature some of the best poems of terror and the supernatural by leading contemporary poets. Ann K. Schwader, Adam Bolivar, D. L. Myers, Wade German, and others grace this issue. Carole Abourjeili writes on vampires, Christian Dickinson in banshees, Steven Withrow on ghosts, and Scott J. Couturier on ghouls. David Barker continues his revisioning of Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth, while Carl E. Reed writes a vibrant tribute to Clark Ashton Smith. Ngo Binh Anh Khoa uses a Vietnamese verse form to cosmic terror and grue; master versifier Frank Coffman conveys weirdness in a quaternelle; and Joshua Gage utilizes the ghazal to speak of the "old gods." The classic reprints include an anonymous poem dating to 1823 and James F. Morton's "Haunted Houses." Reviews by Leigh Blackmore, Katherine Kerestman, and Steven Withrow of recent books of weird poetry complete a bountiful issue.

Unquiet Stars is the ninth collection from Rhysling Award-winning speculative poet Ann K. Schwader. These poems of somber brilliance are equally magisterial as metrical formalism or as free verse. Complex and hypnotic, Schwader's work leads us down-or out-into ancient darknesses that touch us where we live.

In this edition of Tales of the Talisman, Brock Marie Moore introduces us to Kumit, an alien scientist looking for microbes, who stumblesupon space pirates. Bryan Thomas Schmidt takes us to the border where illegal aliens are captured by aliens from outer space. C.J. Kilmer takes us to a post-apocalyptic future where the driver of a steam-powered truck encounters a cybernetic supersoldier. Kelly Dillon warns of the dangers that could come of pushing teleportation technology too far. Scott Allen Abfalter imagines a future where wizards invoke their spells using computers. Take up the Talisman and explore these stories and more