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"Allen's is poetry for goths of all ages ... There is a long tradition of poetry dealing with the uncanny — think Keats' 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' or Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' — and it's nice to see someone putting it to such use again. Allen's poems ... do a fine job of making the human scary and the scary human."
— The Philadelphia Inquirer
"The literary equivalent of a Caravaggio painting, where light is bright and casts all the more shadow for its brilliance .... Fantastical places like the REM Sleep Factory, the belly of the enigmatic Time Shark, the Gates of Hell, and even the Apocalypse itself; these and others are not dark places but places where light and darkness intermingle to cast long, clawed shadows."
— The Pedestal Magazine
Strange Wisdoms of the Dead spans ten years of my career. It's more than 150 pages, with 54 poems (including the one translated into Greek that's on the stones on the cover) and four short stories focused on dark fantasy and the surreal. The book is divided into four sections: krypta (secrets); chresthenta (epiphanies); deina (horrors); and diauliai (duets). Each section ends with a story, and the final section includes collaborations with Anita Allen (my wife), Charles Saplak, Christina Sng and Sonya Taaffe. The book includes my Rhysling Award-winning poem "The Strip Search," as well as three Rhysling runner-ups ("A Ghost Story," "How I Will Outwit the Time Thieves," "The Night Watchman Dreams His Rounds at the REM Sleep Factory.") Some of the contents were selected from two of my previous collections, Defacing the Moon and Petting the Time Shark, but many of the poems have not been collected before, and several are original to the book. Three of the stories have not been collected previously, and one is published in the book for the first time.
It's my hope that if you check it out, you'll find you have a wild ride in store, and I hope you do check it out. If you want signed copies, you can buy them here. The cover price is $15. If you buy them straight from me, I'll include the shipping in the $15.
Contents
I. KRYPTA
THE STRANGE WISDOM OF THE DEAD
THE PSYCHIC ABOVE BURRITOVILLE
FUNERAL PIE
THE DREAM EATERS
THE STRIP SEARCH
saecula saeculorum
cotillion in shards
une petite morte
BIZARREMOST BAZAAR
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE
A GHOST STORY
THE ROMANTIC AGE
THE UNSEELIE TREE
that strange man with the green petunias
THE CLAIRVOYANT, BETWEEN DARK AND DREAM
HUMPTY
II. CRESTHENTA
JARS
MORSE CODE
A CURTAIN OF STARS
PETTING THE TIME SHARK
DEFACING THE MOON
COSMIC EGO
GODSPORE
PHASE SHIFT
MOMENTUM
PULSE
desolvation
METAREBELLION
APOTHEOSIS
THE BEST OF ALL PROBABLE WORLDS
HOW I WILL OUTWIT THE TIME THIEVES
SPACE WAR
PSYCHOSPACE SINGULARITY
EATING THE TIME SHARK
BETWEEN STANZAS
II. DEINA
THE NIGHT WATCHMAN DREAMS HIS ROUNDS AT THE REM SLEEP FACTORY
HE WINDOWS BREATHE
THIRD SHIFT AT THE PLASTEEL SPIDER FACTORY
THE INTERVIEW
THE NIGHT GARDENERS
IN A PAST LIFE, I AM A WARLOCK'S SEVERED HEAD
THE TERRIBLE BEAUTY OF A SEVERED NECK
HOST
MOTHER
PATRICIDE
DEATH OF THE FATHER
THE ELDERS
THE EYEWISH STATION
AN EVENING STROLL
AT THE END
finale
LET THERE BE DARKNESS
IV. DIAULIAI
ARANEA (with Sonya Taaffe)
TRANSFORMATIONS (with Christina Sng)
BLOODSPELL (with Anita Allen)
ASUNDER (with Christina Sng)
STRANGE WISDOMS OF THE DEAD (with Charles M. Saplak)
— The Philadelphia Inquirer
"The literary equivalent of a Caravaggio painting, where light is bright and casts all the more shadow for its brilliance .... Fantastical places like the REM Sleep Factory, the belly of the enigmatic Time Shark, the Gates of Hell, and even the Apocalypse itself; these and others are not dark places but places where light and darkness intermingle to cast long, clawed shadows."
— The Pedestal Magazine
Strange Wisdoms of the Dead spans ten years of my career. It's more than 150 pages, with 54 poems (including the one translated into Greek that's on the stones on the cover) and four short stories focused on dark fantasy and the surreal. The book is divided into four sections: krypta (secrets); chresthenta (epiphanies); deina (horrors); and diauliai (duets). Each section ends with a story, and the final section includes collaborations with Anita Allen (my wife), Charles Saplak, Christina Sng and Sonya Taaffe. The book includes my Rhysling Award-winning poem "The Strip Search," as well as three Rhysling runner-ups ("A Ghost Story," "How I Will Outwit the Time Thieves," "The Night Watchman Dreams His Rounds at the REM Sleep Factory.") Some of the contents were selected from two of my previous collections, Defacing the Moon and Petting the Time Shark, but many of the poems have not been collected before, and several are original to the book. Three of the stories have not been collected previously, and one is published in the book for the first time.
It's my hope that if you check it out, you'll find you have a wild ride in store, and I hope you do check it out. If you want signed copies, you can buy them here. The cover price is $15. If you buy them straight from me, I'll include the shipping in the $15.
Contents
I. KRYPTA
II. CRESTHENTA
II. DEINA
IV. DIAULIAI