January 31, 2006

Well, kiddies – it’s been a great quarter for dark poetry.

With Issue #2, I’ve decided to hunker down and get a bit more serious, so you will notice more quality and less quantity in the poetry. Now, before you get your panties in a twist, we’ll be adding poets each month to the Wordsmith section, to keep you coming back for more throughout the quarter and give more exposure to the fine wordsmiths who are already there.

The Neil Gaiman listed is, in fact, the one and only Himself – A New York Times Best Selling Author with several collections under his belt that include pieces of poetry, such as Angels and Visitations. I’ve been reading Neil since I was 16, working in a record store, and he was doing a good Lou Reed impersonation, writing the Sandman comics. Neil’s appearance in Spiderwords coincides with our Featured Publisher, Biting Dog Press, which published a highly collectible broadside of Neil’s poetry, currently sold-out and popping up on eBay to the tune of $700 here and there. That’s a lot of dough for one poem. It’s not just the poetry that makes it valuable, or the man behind it. It’s the quality of the publishing craft gone into making the thing come alive…something that Biting Dog Press does expertly, as with another piece of Neil’s work, Snow, Glass, and Apples – a short story republished as a limited by Biting Dog. More about Biting Dog will be found in our Featured Publisher’s section next week.

David N. Wilson is our other Featured Poet. David is probably best known for his vampires, and no one does sanguine dripping verse quite like David. As a long-time collaborator with him, I can honestly say he brings a unique voice to free-verse, and has often told aspiring writers that the best way to begin a story is to begin it with a poem. A lot of his story ideas derive from poetry, and I myself made use of one such poem which he let me use for the basis of a vampire-oriented story called “Blood Charmer.” It’s with great pleasure that Spiderwords brings you more of his work to read. For those of you who were expecting Doug Winter - don't despair - we'll be featuring him in a future issue of Spiderwords so that we can include more pieces of his work, instead of just one.

Our  contributing poets are no slouches. Amy Grech wrote one of my favorite short stories on the subject of vampires called “Snip My Suckers,” in 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories (Barnes and Noble Books, 1995). Her poem, “Machine Gun Latte,” invokes the kind of images I recall from seeing soldiers every airport over the last few years. James S. Dorr is not to be missed – “Annchuck Rising” is a reprint that I published years ago in Gothic.net, and still rings true as an example of what a modern poet can do to make something timeless. Steve Vernon brings us a musing on ‘building a better horror writer.’ A. M. Muffaz is quite possibly one of the most underrated poets in our time – I have been reading her work since the first time she cropped up one of my slush piles many years back, have read aptly written poems of various form and verse, and marveled at the fact that English is her second language. Or third. I’ve lost count, but she deserves the credit anyway. Enjoy the poems she’s offered us. You’ll see a lot more people publishing her work in the future because it’s memorable.

In the way of contributing columnists, we’ve added a new addition: Darren P. McKeeman, writing a yet untitled (Uncle Spider has temporarily titled this work “Zombie Cannabis & the Buffalo Park of Doom” to get you reading it, because it’s that good) work with some of the same characters you may have read and loved in City Of Apocrypha, a serial I first published at SFgoth.com’s ERRATA (no longer published) which is now available in book form. It’s a good way to check up on Lloyd Stark and the zombies that have overrun San Francisco…

James London continues his serial “The Legend of Saint Swithin,” now on chapter 23. Chapters 1-22 are being archived for those of you coming in late in the story, which has evolved from a look at the world of dotcom excess into success, excess, sex, and drugs, and…well…you never know with Swithin. The dotcom part just sort of enabled it all. London’s novel-in-progress is a great way to view the way something comes together – it is by no means a finished product, but we like it that way.

Michael Lohr will be giving you a little something extra once we get the kinks in the code worked out – we’ll have a Pop Quiz that will earn our readers a few prizes, plus, he’s given us two things to ponder: 1) Ten Pop Culture Signs of the Coming Apocalypse, and 2) A diatribe on Edgar Allan Poe – which also ties into our Featured Publisher, Biting Dog Press, which offers a limited gorgeous edition of The Raven, one of history’s most famous poems.

Dr. Kaos will be back with more political venom on March 1st, so don’t despair. John Urbancik brings us a wonderful look at how spiders spin Navajo legends as well as silk – his contributions are not only in text. He’s been giving us a keen look at Australian Spiders he encounters too, in photos for Uncle Spider.

Last but not least, be sure to get your poetry horoscope from Sephera Giron, our tarotscope expert who brings you a new one each month. Uncle Spider says she's never wrong... And groom yourself with more knowledge of poetry than you had when you came to Spiderwords with Geoffrey Goodwin's excellent and plentiful reviews. Not only are there choice books by your better known poets, but also volumes from unknown poets. We like to keep a good balance.

I will end this very long introductory letter with a thank-you to the readers who have been giving dark poetry a new audience.

Keep reading, keep submitting, and remember – don’t ever kill spiders. They have ways of getting word to their relatives to climb into your nose and your mouth while you sleep, and spin webs that will stop you from breathing.

Darkly,

Rain Graves
Editor In Chief