  Horror/Scary
This week: Lyric Essence of Horror Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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"Soon from noxious birth began;
Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold;
The ground was cleft, and mad auras rolled
Down on the quaking citadels of man.
Then, crushing what chanced to mound in play,
The idiot Chaos blew Earth's dust away."
~ H.P. Lovecraft ~
"All fled-all done, so lift me on the pyre-
The Feast is over, and the lamps expire."
~ Robert E. Howard ~
Welcome, my friends, to this week's edition of the WDCHorror/Scary Newsletter, where we will explore the lyric [im]balance of horror  |
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Greetings, fellow weavers of images, places, things, entities (sentient and otherwise), probing the darkness, in its myriad forms within and without
Think about it ~ Horror is not a generic abstract. It's in the details ~ engaging the senses to feel, see, hear and taste the darkness the writer envisions or imagines. Likewise, poetry is a snapshot, an image in time, place, imagination expressed in words that ignite the reader/speaker to see, hear, taste, smell, imagine that image.
So, horror, by its nature, invites lyric expression.
"I'm scared of the dark"
becomes
"I fear the night/ when cerulean skies/ give way to death's watch/ that in darkness lies."
Okay, more words, but does not the second image make you see why the speaker fears the dark; what he sees/imagines lurking at the crossroads of day and night?
Horror in lyric form ranges in subject from the vampyric, flesh-rending, slasher horror to that which lurks behind the ordinary, the mundane of everyday life. Poems dealing with these topics can be short or long, detailing horrific stand-alone scenes or telling complete stories. Poems featuring horror as a subject can take on any poetry style, can be rhymed or unrhymed, and make use of literary devices (assonance, alliteration) used in other types of poetry. A horror poem touches on the same elements found in a horror story but, being a poem, each stanza, each line, each word, is immediate and vivid, engaging the senses of the listener. Horror in verse, therefore, paints an image that's sensual (engages the senses - smell, taste sight, imagination), immediate, and vivid.
It may not look like a poem (i.e., set in groupings of stanzas) but "'Masque of the Red Death' [is] assuredly a poem in every sense of the word save the metrical one, and owes as much of its power to aural cadence as to visual imagery" quoting H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature.
For your own horror in verse, consider holding to one specific genre of horror, be it vampyric, splatter-punk, psychological, just a few possibilities. Set the scene with vivid words that engage the senses and lead the reader/listener into your image of horror you wish him/her to perceive. If you can work in a rhyme without forcing, try it. If not, capture the scene in vivid words.
Look for the horror of everyday things, the subjective horrors. There's nothing inherently horrific about a kid's bicycle, but set in the right context, i.e., overturned in the crosswalk, one wheel still turning; no rider in sight, one pink sneaker burning. Okay, you can weave one better ~ but can you see here the ominous image, hear the spokes click, click, click, smell the burning sneaker and cringe at the possible fate(s) of the girl (pink sneaker). .
Write visually. Think about your favorite horror movies as you construct the lines of your poem. The more visual you can make the horror on the page, the better you will be able to draw your readers in. Description is a key element of horror. Design your lyric description to disgust your readers or to send a chill along their spines.
Touch your readers with visceral writing. Horror poetry isn't typically intellectual. Touch readers on a primal level by addressing the fears that many people share, for example burning alive What scared you as a kid? Was it the creature in the closet? The the skeleton in the brush behind the garage (a ferret, most likely)? Or, as an adult, do you fear birds? or the scream of fire engines? burning alive? A phone ringing in the middle of the night?
Horror is in the ordinary, in the normal and ab-normal, in the mundane and in the imagined. It's not pretty. Wordsmiths use tools to carve each horrific image; and in lyric verse it's vivid, immediate.
Trust yourself, your wordsmithing ability, to convey in lyric images what unsettles you, what makes you look over your shoulder, and your readers will likewise cringe, looking back over their own.
Lyric horror in verse is welcomed in our Community. There is also a market welcoming such lyric horror for paid publication. Check out the guidelines here,
http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/poetry.shtml
Write On
Kate
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Enter the otherworlds woven in lyric verse that frighten, horrify, and/or make you see the ordinary (and un-ordinary) in a different way ~ then share with them your perception (yes, a review perhaps
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#1798701 by Not Available. |
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#1325794 by Not Available. |
| |  | Invasion (13+)
Poem about an invasion of our world by amoeba-like beings. Iambic Heptameter (a rare one).
#1654023 by R. Walter Smith  |
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#1853650 by Not Available. |
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#1841934 by Not Available. |
| | | Darkness Floods (13+)
Shakespearean Sonnet Written For Endless Night Poetry Contest. Three prompts used.
#1285964 by Mitch  |
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My thanks to lainy for the quesiton that prompted this exploration. I invite you to visit lainy for some good reads, and share your thoughts with a review, perchance
From lainy :
Hi, I am a great fan of Horror stories and books but I find the market lacking in Horror Poetry, I know it's not most people's cup of tea but to read something within a few minutes which sends shivers down your spine or goosebumps across your arms can be very rewarding too :)
Thanks for provoking this exploration of this vivid and visceral technique for writing horror. Yes, I agree, lyric horror is 'alive, it's alive.'
I invite each of you engaged in the exploration to have some fun with it and weave your own horrific best in lyric form ^_^ Share it here you may see your work appear in full gory horror in a future issue
Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
Striving to live the ordinary life in a non-ordinary way.
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Horror/Scary: July 04, 2012 Issue [#5136]
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