Strange Wisdoms of the Dead: Twentieth Anniversary Edition

TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION"Allen's is poetry for goths of all ages . . . There is a long tradition of poetry dealing with the uncanny - think Keats' 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' or Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' - and it's nice to see someone putting it to such use again. Allen's poems . . . do a fine job of making the human scary and the scary human." -PopMatters"Mike Allen's voice is nothing short of mesmerizing." -Laird BarronHow many ways can the world end? In fire. In ice. In howls of laughter or tears of madness. As a flip cosmic joke or a tragedy of love destroyed. In private agony or sweeping apocalypse. In our ignorance we turn to the dead for enlightenment, but even they despair of the answer.A mind-bending journey into realms of death and darkness, Mike Allen's head-turning, genre-bending debut returns with a new cover, new afterword, and new availability in e-book format. Here the mysticism of tarot fuses with the magic of the Mayans, and childhood nightmares caress your face in the middle of the night. A playful kick sends Earth out of orbit, plots to steal time are thwarted, windows pulse with ghostly breath. The sacrifice of a daughter damns the world, and the dead struggle to communicate a fate beyond all understanding."Strange Wisdoms of the Dead is an excellent overview of the poet's past ten years of writing." - Ellen Datlow, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror"The literary equivalent of a Caravaggio painting, where light is bright and casts all the more shadow for its brilliance." - The Pedestal Magazine"Features some of his more daring and experimental work . . . This is a splendid collection." -Fantasy LiteratureA Philadelphia Inquirer Editor's Choice selection