After Armageddon: the Future of Weird Poetry
Panel discussion with K A Opperman, Ashley Dioses, Adam Bolivar, D L Myers, S.T. Joshi
There has been much discussion about the renaissance of Weird poetry in recent years. But what of its future? How will rapidly changing media affect an art form which has endured since the dawn of history? Could an AI convincingly compose traditional forms of metered and rhymed poetry? Will there be ballads about Martian pioneers? Weird poets will dig into this topic and muse on the future of speculative versification.
in the classroom.
S. T. Joshi is the author of such critical studies as The Weird Tale (Univ. of Texas Press, 1990), H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West (Starmont House, 1990), The Modern Weird Tale (McFarland, 2001), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (PS Publishing, 2012). He has edited a corrected edition of H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction (Collected Fiction: A Variorum Edition [Hippocampus Press, 2015–16]) as well as The Ancient Track: Complete Poetical Works (Night Shade Books, 2001; rev. ed. Hippocampus Press, 2013) and Collected Essays (Hippocampus Press, 2004–06; 5 vols.). He has prepared three annotated editions of Lovecraft’s tales for Penguin (1999–2004). His exhaustive biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (Necronomicon Press, 1996), won the British Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award; a revised and expanded edition has appeared as I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press, 2010).
Joshi has done scholarly work on other authors of supernatural fiction. He is the author of a bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 1993) and critical study of Lord Dunsany (Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination [Greenwood Press, 1995]), and a critical study of Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction [Liverpool Univ. Press, 2001]). He has prepared editions of the work of Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, Ambrose Bierce, and other writers. He is the coeditor (with Stefan Dziemianowicz) of Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2005).
Joshi has edited such anthologies as American Supernatural Tales (Penguin, 2007), the Black Wings series (PS Publishing, 2010f.), Searchers After Horror (Fedogan & Bremer, 2014), A Mountain Walked: Great Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (Centipede Press, 2014), and The Madness of Cthulhu (Titan Books, 2014–15).
Adam Bolivar is a poet of dark fantasy, a weird fiction writer, and a marionette playwright with a particular interest in balladry, alliterative verse and Jack tales. He is the author of _The Lay of Old Hex_ (Hippocampus Press, 2017), _The Ettinfell of Beacon Hill_, (Jackanapes Press, 2021), _Ballads for the Witching Hour_ (Hippocampus Press 2022), and the forthcoming _A Wheel of Ravens_ (Jackanapes Press, 2023). A native of Boston, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.
Ashley Dioses is a poet of dark fantasy and horror from southern California. She is currently working on her first book of dark traditional poetry to be out from Hippocampus Press, hopefully this year. Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Spectral Realms, Weirdbook Magazine, Omnium Gatherum Media, Eye to the Telescope, Xnoybis, Necronomicum, Gothic Blue Book, and elsewhere. Her poem, “Carathis”, published inSpectral Realms No. 1, is mentioned in Ellen Datlow's full recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Seven list. She blogs at fiendlover.blogspot.com.
A native southern Californian, K. A. Opperman is a poet of horror and fantasy writing in the Weird tradition of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. His work has appeared in such notable publications as Spectral Realms, Weird Fiction Review, Weirdbook, Skelos, Gothic Blue Book, the Horror Writers Association's Horror Poetry Showcase, and many other magazines. His debut book-length verse collection The Crimson Tome was released by Hippocampus Press in August 2015, and he has a second collection well underway. Against the fashion of the times, he writes solely in careful rhyme and meter, whether it be for a magazine, or for a wine label for Lovecraft Wines.
D. L. Myers is a writer of Weird poetry in the vein of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. His work has appeared in Spectral Realms, Halloween Howlings and K. A. Opperman's The Crimson Tome. He also is an accomplished reader of poetry, and he does a weekly video poetry reading of contemporary and classic Weird poets, as well as his own work, which he posts on his blog vulravin.blogspot.com. He also had his debut live poetry reading at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, San Pedro. He lives in the mist-shrouded Skagit Valley of the Pacific Northwest.