Strange Wisdoms of the Dead

A Philadaphia Inquirer Editor's Choice selection. 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. -The Philadephia Inquirer The literary equivalent of a Caravaggio painting, where light is bright and casts all the more shadow for its brilliance . . . Fantastical places like the REM Sleep Factory, the belly of the enigmatic Time Shark, the Gates of Hell, and even the Apocalypse itself; these and others are not dark places but places where light and darkness intermingle to cast long, clawed shadows. - The Pedestal Magazine A comprehensive Mike Allen anthology covering ten years, compiling not just his poems but his fiction and collaborations as well . . . Strange Wisdoms of the Dead features some of his more daring and experimental work and so you might want to check this out for that. This is a splendid collection. -Fantasy Literature Mythic Delirium Books edition