Editorial

‘Do you suppose there are any good horror poems, or is "good horror" an oxymoron?’

Richard Epstein posed the question on the Shit Creek Review Blog. Your Humble & Obedient Editor, desperately stalling for time, riposted,

‘Well, Richard, can you think of any examples of decent horror poetry?’

But Richard was relentless, and not to be so easily put off:

‘When they talk about horror poetry, people mean Gothic stuff—bats and vampires and the worms crawl in/the worms crawl out and I wants to make your flesh creep. They mean Vincent Price and Lovecraft and Bad Poe and maybe slasher flicks.’

‘I would argue,’ Nigel Holt chimed in, ‘that there is always room for a fresh perspective in any cliché for it to be inverted. There is always subversive potential in any mass medium—despite what Herbert Marcuse might say about the matter! There is something very one-dimensional about one dimensionality—it basically isn't true. There is always room. It all depends on the skill of the writer—the best poets always transcend the difficulties of cliché.’

Pat Jones looked thoughtful. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘there will be at least one poet featured in SCR5 who will focus on the current horror. 1,087,537 Iraqis dead.... not to mention thousands of their invaders dead... and so many more living with life-long injuries… ’

'Heart of Darkness,' murmured Angela France. Don Zirilli growled a throaty growl: 'Fart of darkness...'

Later that dark and stormy night, Your Humble Editor paused while scratching out a feeble sentence and gazed absent-mindedly through his study windows at the fretful fluorescent-green currents of Shit Creek, which burbled sullenly through the diseased, polluted sedge.

A jagged flash of lightning cracked the scenery open, spilling water and meaning out of the very moulds of existence. The surface of Shit Creek rippled, bulged, burst—as a green mass of glowing algae, the Thing from Shit Creek, excreted itself urgently from below, clawing and oozing its way to the upper world, spewing itself forth onto the nearer bank.

The Editor gasped to hear the unearthly skirl of phantom bagpipes swirl across the creek. Striding from the gloom was the stern ghost of William Topaz McGonagall, spectral cheeks bulging, puffing its ectoplasmic wind into the demonic pipes. The Thing from Shit Creek shuddered, reeked, then split into numberless globules which, dancing jerkily to the wail of the pipes, formed into an army of undead poems: grotesque poems, damned poems, zombie poems, horrific poems—some blood-curdling, some quietly desperate, some unhealthily satiric, all slurping towards the little hut by Shit Creek, all reaching out tortured, dripping hands, and chanting in unison:

‘We have come for the soul of Richard Epstein! Gurgle! Give us the soul of Richard Epstein… ’

Aghast, the Editor flung down his useless quill and fled shrieking into the storm.

Epilogue

Don Zirilli hid in the bushes and survived the Night of Poetry Horror. He lives in seclusion in a mud hut in the woods, where he typed this message on a rusty typewriter and sent it to The Shit Creek Times: How can I resist 'Gandy Dancer of the Phoebe Snow' by Tom Sheehan? The very first line hints that this is no ordinary homeless-person poem, and then the v-grooved pole hits you right over the head. If reality is constructed by the mind, then it is a slave to memory, to the past self shaping the present self. No, I have no idea what the title means. I imagine the "Phoebe Snow" to be a train taking you from birth to death, on which you dance, shakily of course because the train is always moving, turning, changing speed.

Pat Jones escaped downstream in an abandoned canoe, drifting ashore on the California coast. She later went on to produce a series of paintings which when viewed backwards, spelled out this chilling revelation: My choice: Rick Mullin's 'Shrine to Satan'. Having built a few things in my time that have disturbed the neighbors, I relate to and enjoy this poem even more each time I come back to read it. I love how I can visualize every poetic step in the construction of this found sculpture.

Angela France, our newest Poetry Co-Editor, was abducted by a flying saucer just in time to escape the Poem Zombies from Shit Creek. After re-wiring her brain the aliens returned her to earth where she lives a normal normal blip normal life, though occasionally channelling Cosmic News Bulletins from the 72nd Dimension: I found it incredibly difficult to pick just one: there are so many poems here that I really enjoy. However I think I have to settle on Duncan Gillies MacLaurin's 'Horror Vacui'. I love the way the themes of excess and dissolution play off the restriction of the form. It is so very well crafted but the craft is kept out of sight, as it should be. Beautifully done!

Nigel Holt has completely disappeared. He was last seen wearing a neat three-piece suit but with bare feet, fleeing into the night from the Poem Zombies. In a recent séance, Madame Sosostris relayed this message from Nigel: My pick is 'Return of the Magus' by Charles Musser. I keep returning to this scene—an ur-nativity that has more each time I read it—not just the odd use of campanology terms. It has atmosphere and a strange revulsion in its imagery that has me sneaking back to it to listen to the maggots eating. Great poem.

Paul Stevens’ fly-blown head was recently seen on a pole outside Mr Kurtz's hut at the Inner Station. The placard alongside the head reads: This time it's Alison Brackenbury's 'Out of the box' which possesses my soul. Of course I cannot resist the vicarious tuck-in of it all (which reminds me of that rich feast I sated myself on once in Keats' 'The Eve of St Agnes'); and the shifting, hypnotising rhythms of Alison's poem, so cunningly crafted, wrap themselves around my brain in the most seductive way. But the 'bite' at the end is what really sets my teeth on edge: and that's where the horror comes from. Delicious.

The soul of Richard Epstein can be found at his blog.

Best of Net 2007

We have nominated the following poems for the Sundress The Best of the Net 2007. To qualify, the poems must have been first published or appeared on the web between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007.

'Mortimer' by Rose Poto (then Rose Kelleher)

'The Fight' by Danielle Lapidoth

'The Pessimistic Ballade of Arbitrary Behaviour' by David McClure

'To the Dean' by Tim Murphy

'Is About:' by Wendy Videlock

'The House at Crowholes' by Tony Williams

Editors

Angela France - Poetry Editor

Nigel Holt - Poetry Editor

Don Zirilli - Art Editor

Patricia Wallace Jones - Artist on Board

Peter Bloxsom - Coding Consultant (Netpublish)

Paul Stevens - General and Poetry Editor

The poems in this issue of The Shit Creek Review were selected by three editors from anonymous texts strictly on the basis of intrinsic merit, the only criterion that will ever be applied to text selection by this ezine.