Spectral Realms

Series · 2 books · 2014-2015

By S.T. Joshi

Books in series

Spectral Realms No. 1

2014

The last few decades have seen a remarkable efflorescence of weird poetry, to such a degree that we can authentically state that a renaissance of the genre is underway. Hippocampus Press has always been committed to this most rarefied mode of expression, and now Spectral Realms, published in Summer and Winter, leads the way. The contributors in this first issue, hailing from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, and elsewhere, are indicative of the worldwide nature of the weird poetry renaissance. New poets who have emerged in recent years—Ann K. Schwader, Wade German, Leigh Blackmore, K. A. Opperman—join such veterans as Bruce Boston, W. H. Pugmire, and Richard L. Tierney in contributing vital original work to this issue. In addition to publishing new, original poetry from modern practitioners, Spectral Realms also resurrects classic poems from prior ages as one component of its educational function; another component is the inclusion of essays on weird poets or on topics related to the field and reviews of contemporary work, whether it be volumes of poetry, anthologies, works of criticism and scholarship, or other volumes of ancillary interest.

Spectral Realms No. 2

2015

The spectral realms that thou canst see With eyes veil’d from the world and me. “To a Dreamer,” H. P. Lovecraft This second issue of Spectral Realms, Hippocampus Press’s acclaimed journal of weird poetry, features all-original poems—sonnets, ballads, vibrant free-verse lyrics, and much else—from such leading writers as John Shirley, William F. Nolan, Wade German, Gemma Files, Ann Schwader, W. H. Pugmire, and many others. It leads off with a lengthy poem by Donald Sidney-Fryer, one of the pillars of the weird poetry movement for the last half-century or more. Spectral Realms is devoted to the study and analysis of weird poetry as much as it is a showcase for the poetry itself. Accordingly, this issue features Part 1 of Leigh Blackmore’s detailed examination of the verse of Leah Bodine Drake, whose A Hornbook for Witches is one of the rarest of books published by Arkham House. The issue also contains incisive reviews of recent books of poetry by Sunni K Brock. With its generous sampling of poetry both old and new, its articles and reviews, and its elegant and tasteful design, Spectral Realms is the ideal showcase for the renaissance of weird poetry now underway.

Author

S.T. Joshi

Author · 44 books

Sunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works. His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others. Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press. In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007. Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price. In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time. Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.