Böcker av Donald Sidney-Fryer

The ageless D. Sidney-Fryer, who has been producing vital work in poetry, prose, and criticism since the 1960s, is back with another dynamic volume of miscellany that exhibits his wide range of interests. Leading off the volume is the novella Star Drek, an exquisite parody of the TV show Star Trek as it recounts the tribulations of a pair of men who run a "garbage scow in outer space." This rollicking adventure spans the cosmos while reflecting the genial good humor characteristic of the author. There follows a series of poems in prose and verse focusing on such wide-ranging subjects as Arthur Machen, ancient gods, painting, dance, and the rugged terrain of New England. "Cosmic Castaways" includes additional poems of a more pensive and wistful sort, while the section "Infinitude and Then Return Therefrom" features work of a philosophical cast and reflects the author's decades-long interest in humanity's place in the universe. D. Sidney-Fryer has made a name for himself as a leading scholar on Clark Ashton Smith and other poets of fantasy and terror. But in this volume he himself emerges as a creative artist in his own right, taking the cosmos as the backdrop for his deft ventures into prose and verse.

In a career that has spanned more than fifty years, Donald Sidney-Fryer has distinguished himself by being the biographer, critic, and bibliographer of Clark Ashton Smith; the chronicler of the "California Romantics," a school of 20th-century poets including Smith, George Sterling, and himself; and an unfailingly acute analyst of poetry and prose fiction in several languages. In this scintillating volume of his more recent writings, Sidney-Fryer dwells at length on his visits to Thailand, Cambodia, Egypt, Central America, Hawaii, and Micronesia, revealing his sensitivity to exotic landscapes and the weight of history and culture in these ancient lands. We also find essays and reviews on surrealism, the poetry of George Sterling, Wade German, Henry J. Vester III, and Alan Gullette, and two vivid accounts of Lovecraft conventions in Providence, R.I. The latter sections of the volume contain Sidney-Fryer's ongoing experiments in poetry and prose poetry, exhibiting his mastery of a multiplicity of verse forms and also taking note of his momentous transition from California to Massachusetts.

The tenth issue of Spectral Realms demonstrates that this journal of weird poetry is going strong as it completes its fifth year of publication. Once again, this issue features the work of many of the leading voices in contemporary weird verse: Wade German, Adam Bolivar, Christina Sng, Frank Coffman, Ann K. Schwader, Chad Hensley, Thomas Tyrrell, and Ian Futter. Manuel Arenas, Liam Garriock, David Barker, and others provide vivid prose-poems. Jeff Hall's "In the Garden of Thasaidon" is a tribute to Clark Ashton Smith, while Manuel Pérez-Campos's "The Mirror of Arkham Woe" draws inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft's "The Colour out of Space." The classic reprints feature a pair of scintillating haunted-house poems by the acclaimed American poets Lizette Woodworth Reese and Edwin Arlington Robinson. Marcos Legaria supplies the second part of his study of Clark Ashton Smith's influence on Robert Nelson, quoting the entirety of Nelson's vivid poem "Dream-Stair" (Weird Tales, April 1935). Among the reviews, Leigh Blackmore studies the October 2018 issue of Eye to the Telescope, the online journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and Donald Sidney-Fryer contributes a review-article on the brilliant work of G. Sutton Breiding. As a special bonus, a complete index of authors and titles to all ten issues of Spectral Realms is provided.

The ninth issue of Hippocampus Press's acclaimed journal of weird poetry features verse by some of the leading contemporary poets of fantasy, horror, and the supernatural, including Frank Coffman, Fred Chappell, Ashley Dioses, Wade German, K. A. Opperman, Leigh Blackmore, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Ann K. Schwader, and the late Michael Fantina. Such significant fiction writers as John Shirley, Darrell Schweitzer, and David Barker also contribute striking weird verse, while Liam Garriock, David B. Harrington, Charles D. O'Connor III, and others show that the prose-poem is alive and well. Among the classic reprints are rare and unreprinted poems by Madison Cawein (a prominent poet of the turn of the 20th century, much of whose work is laced with weirdness) and Dora Sigurson Shorter. Marcos Legaria contributes the first part of a detailed examination of the influence of Clark Ashton Smith upon the poetry of Robert Nelson, who in his tragically brief life (1912-1935) produced some scintillating work that continues to attract attention. In the section of reviews, Donald Sidney-Fryer assesses Henry J. Vester III's Of Mist and Crystal; Frank Coffman supplies a sensitive reading of Ashley Dioses's Diary of a Sorceress; and Russ Parkhurst evaluates Adam Bolivar's book of ballads, The Lay of Old Hex.