Recommended poets?

[Doctor Dugald Eldritch]

Helen Adam was a Scottish poetess who emigrated to America where she became associated with the San Francisco Beats; but many of her ballads concern themselves with the macabre and the supernatural, the romantic and the spectral.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...HUxEk0-kZoxjHQ

[Druidic]

Don't sell Bob Howard short. He was a good poet even if his verse is a bit pulpy. Besides, is that all bad? The pulps at their best were distinguished by vitality and creativity. If you're not a fastidious soul, you'll find much to like in REH's verse.

Brennan's best poetry is as good as weird verse gets. De la Mare also wrote some nice spectral stuff. You'd be amazed at how many non-weird poets have created the occasional weird poem .

[MetaMortician]

Quote Originally Posted by teguififthzeal

I think Radcliffe Squires is neglected, though no one else seems to think that.

Agreed, prominent on my list as well, which is too long to list.
Top four in order:

Emily Dickinson
Dante Alighieri
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Luis de Gongora

[Druidic]

When I was young, critics tended to regard Clark Ashton as a better poet than Lovecraft and I, too, bought into that. Not so much so these days. Smith was a fine poet with a grand style, ornate and gorgeous language, but I ask myself: Do Smith's poems have a greater emotional 'kick' to them ? I don't necessarily think so. Lovecraft had a real feeling for the sonnet--like E. A. Robinson--and his narrative poems can be wickedly ingenious as well as brilliant in their economy and imagery. It's all academic, I suppose. Just two great poets that elevated the weird to considerable heights
Regarding CAS' work,I love, most of all, his prose poems. "Ennui" is just a classic while "The Abominations of Yondo" is one of the few works not by Shiel, that raises up Poe's spectre from the essential salts.

The Abominations of Yondo by Clark Ashton Smith

[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

The Abominations of Yondo by Clark Ashton Smith

Nice

[h1]The Abyss Triumphant[/h1]
[h2]Clark Ashton Smith[/h2]

The force of suns had waned beyond recall.
Chaos was re-established over all,
Where lifeless atoms through forgetful deeps
Fled unrelated, cold, immusical.
Above the tumult heaven alone endured;
Long since the bursting walls of hell had poured
Demon and damned to peace erstwhile denied,
Within the Abyss God's might had not immured.
(He could but thwart it with creative mace. . . .)
And now it rose about the heavenly Base,
Mordant at pillars rotten through and through
Of Matter's last, most firm abiding-place.
Bastion and minaret began to nod,
Till all the pile, unmindful of His rod,
Dissolved in thunder, and the void Abyss
Caught like a quicksand at the feet of God !

[teguififthzeal]

Norah May French was definitely not feeling good most of the time

[miguel1984]

I read somewhere that the poetry collection Eighteen Straight Whiskies (1997, so named as an homage to Dylan Thomas) by the actor Michael Easton is really good. He also wrote a bunch of graphic novels, one of them with Peter Straub. Did anyone read it?

[MoeShinola1]

G. K. Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse is amazing - an epic composed in the 20th Century! And if you liked the poems J. R. R. Tolkien put in the beginning of the Hobbit at the "Unexpected Party" when they laid out their dark plans to go to the mountain, you will see right away what an influence Chesterton was on them. It's the same meter. Book 3, where Alfred of Wessex and the Vikings(King Guthrim and his knights) pass around the harp exchanging songs is unforgettable. Here's my favorite bit:

Blue-eyed was Elf the minstrel,
With womanish hair and ring,
Yet heavy was his hand on sword,
Though light upon the string.
And as he stirred the strings of the harp
To notes but four or five,
The heart of each man moved in him
Like a babe buried alive.
And they felt the land of the folk-songs
Spread southward of the Dane,
And they heard the good Rhine flowing
In the heart of all Allemagne.
They felt the land of the folk-songs,
Where the gifts hang on the tree,
Where the girls give ale at morning
And the tears come easily.
The mighty people, womanlike,
That have pleasure in their pain
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens loved in vain.
As he sang of Balder beautiful,
Whom the heavens could not save,
Till the world was like a sea of tears
And every soul a wave.
"There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well;
A thing forgotten, as long ago,
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.
"The thing on the blind side of the heart,
On the wrong side of the door,
The green plant groweth, menacing
Almighty lovers in the spring;
There is always a forgotten thing,
And love is not secure."

E. A. Robinson, mentioned before in this thread is one of my favorite poets, as are Burges Johnson, Austin Dobson, Swinburne, and Marge Piercy.

[Doctor Dugald Eldritch]

Jean Louis De Esque's Betelgeuse, A Trip Through Hell is a strange book that portrays Hell on the star Betelgeuse. It has been compared to George Sterling's imaginative A Wine of Wizardry and carries the true element of cosmic horror.




Frontispiece illustration portraying Typhon on his cosmic throne.

[Jeff Coleman]

I've only recently learned of him and got his books in the mail today, but Oliver Sheppard looks like a promising contemporary poet. His latest collection is "Thirteen Nocturnes."

https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Nocturnes-Oliver-Sheppard/dp/1978331207

 

https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Nocturnes-Oliver-Sheppard/dp/1978331207

"Combining lush Gothic lyricism with postmodern experimentation, Oliver Sheppard's second collection of verse, Thirteen Nocturnes, presents a nightmare vision of a world in the grip of apocalypse and shadow--a world where 'a nighttime of years never-ending' becomes 'a darkness severe and unbending,' and where life is relentlessly 'gathered up against the towering shadow of decay.' Taking cues from the dark Romanticism of Poe, the decadent Symbolism of Baudelaire, and the apocalyptic tradition of William Blake--as well as the existential doominess of 20th century cosmic horror--Oliver Sheppard's Thirteen Nocturnes presents a verse vision of collapse, announcing a cold poetics of disintegration in the new dark age of the Anthropocene.

"'Reading Sheppard's poetry is a little like listening to a conversation between Nietzsche and William Blake during a showing of Peckinpah's Cross of Iron. Using a wide range of forms and cultural references, Sheppard illustrates the human condition in ways that take as much account of its absence as its presence... Given the chance, Sheppard will lead you down dark and unfamiliar paths, to moments of weird beauty.' --from the foreword by John Foster"

His other book, "Destruction: Text I" is easily found at that link.

His blog: Oliver Sheppard

Interview: 📖INTERVIEW: “Destruction: Text I� by Oliver Sheppard📖 Evy Zen

Interview with samples from Thirteen Nocturnes:
Gothic Horror Poetry Collection THIRTEEN NOCTURNES+ Interview with author Oliver Sheppard! -

What little I've read is indeed quite good. He also starts his preface to 13N with a quote from Hans Henny Jahnn's "The Night of Lead," which is one of my favorite prose pieces (Ligotti is also mentioned as an influence in the preface, "never far from my nightstand.") Won me over right away with that. Anyway, seems like a writer people here would like, so thought I'd recommend him.