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In April: “Second Annual HWA Horror Poetry Showcase”

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To celebrate National Poetry Month, the Horror Writers Association will be holding their second annual HWA Horror Poetry Showcase in April 2015. Open to all poets, the Showcase will be accepting submissions in April with four poems chosen by HWA member judges to be honored on the HWA website.

Click here to submit.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions will be accepted via Submittable from April 1-30, 2015 and all rights will remain with the poets. Those interested in submitting should visit https://horror.org/2015-poetry-showcase-contest/ on or after April 1 to access the submissions link. Submissions are open to all, whether HWA members or not.

We are looking for more than “blood, guts, worms,” etc. Just being “icky” isn’t enough. Poetry up to fifty lines. Free verse preferred; (hint: no forced rhyme or clichés). Unpublished poems only (though previously published poets are, of course, welcome). One poem per poet. For example, these are some contemporary poets of darkness that we admire: Wendy Rathbone, Marge Simon, Mary Turzillo, Bruce Boston, Gary Clark. Previous winners include Stephanie Wytovich, Robert Borski, Valerie Grice, and Ann K. Schwader.

In addition, at the judge’s discretion, an electronic chapbook of qualifying poems will be considered for publication under the aegis of HWA. Each poem chosen for publication will be paid $5.

Showcase Judges:

For the 2015 Showcase the judges will be Linda D. Addison, Peter Adam Salomon, and Heather Graham.

Linda D. Addison is the award-winning author of four collections of poetry and prose and is the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®. She has published 300 poems, stories and articles and is a member of CITH, HWA, SFWA and SFPA. See her site: www.lindaaddisonpoet.com for more information.

Peter Adam Salomon is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Horror Writers Association, the International Thriller Writers, and The Authors Guild and is represented by the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. His debut novel, HENRY FRANKS was named one of the ten ‘Books All Young Georgians Should Read’ by The Georgia Center For The Book in 2014. His second novel, ALL THOSE BROKEN ANGELS, has been nominated for the 2014 Bram Stoker Award in the Young Adult category.

His poem ‘Electricity and Language and Me’ appeared on BBC Radio 6 performed by The Radiophonic Workshop in December 2013. In addition, he edited the first book of poetry released by the Horror Writers Association, Horror Poetry Showcase Volume 1. See his site: www.peteradamsalomon.com for more information.

Heather Graham is the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of over two hundred novels including suspense, paranormal, historical, and mainstream Christmas fare. She lives in Miami, Florida, her home, and an easy shot down to the Keys where she can indulge in her passion for diving. Travel, research, and ballroom dancing also help keep her sane; she is the mother of five, and also resides with two dogs and two cats. She is CEO of Slush Pile Productions, a recording company and production house for various charity events. See her sites: www.theoriginalheathergraham.com and www.writersforneworleans.com for more information.

The Featured Poems from the 2014 HWA Horror Poetry Showcase were:

Monster, Me
By Stephanie Wytovich

Inside of me, there’s a sickness. A darkness that breeds and snuffs out the good, filling me with screams and cobwebs and an emptiness that infects everything that was once alive. It’s a slow death and I feel everything: every touch, every kiss, every parting. Sometimes I even think my heart stops beating; it just quiets and goes kind of still, barely working until it’s not. I know it’s her, and I know she holds me tighter than any lover I’ve ever known, and I hate her—but oh do I love her—and no matter how hard I try to fight, how desperately I try not to give in, she’s always there, waiting, ready, and willing to take me as I am. Broken. Tired. Weak. She loves and accepts the tragedy of my being and she understands the cuts and the bruises, the stitches and the scars.

I call her monster and she moves within me, finding her comfort spot where she nestles down deep until her arms are mine, until my legs are hers. I see through two pairs of eyes, and breathe with four lungs, and the disease that breeds in my stomach is not a cancer of the flesh, but a mutation of the heart. She’s the cure to my epidemic, my anti-suicide machine, and together we/I walk through this life, holding hands and hearts, whispering secrets and drinking down poisons, mixing black magic remedies and sucking down sage, and together we/I live, somehow we/I survive. My monster, me. The Jekyll to my Hyde.

Stephanie M. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, a book reviewer for Nameless Magazine, and a well-known coffee addict. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and a graduate from Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her poetry collection, HYSTERIA, can be found at www.rawdogscreaming.com. Follow her on twitter @JustAfterSunset.

Instincto
By Robert Borski

Truth to tell, I was never a big fan
of raw veggies, either before or after,
and ironically, when it comes to grilling
meat, I’ve always eschewed the rarer cuts,

preferring extra char on my steaks
and ribs. So imagine my surprise
when this new diet most of the world
is now on, with its instinct-guided

mono-eating and emphasis on totally
unaltered food turned out to be
a real godsend. I’m shedding weight,
barely seem to need any sleep,

and my heart no longer pounds
whenever I exert myself. Who, too,
would have thought that something
a.k.a. the Caveman Diet

could resurrect long dormant senses,
like night vision or acute sensitivity
to smells, or a boyhood love of hunting?
But it has—as well as eliminated

any desire on my part for salt, pepper,
sugar, caffeine or processed fat. From
now on out, it’s strictly food as close
to natural and original as possible,

the same way, fresh down from the trees,
our paleolithic ancestors ate: uncooked,
unprocessed, unspiced. As for those
who’ve never seen the light (but whose

numbers, thankfully, are dwindling), they
who continue to contaminate or pollute
their bodies with chemicals and additives,
who cook the living daylights out of their food

with fire or chemicals, or even more
outrageously claim our diet is dangerous
and a menace to mankind — well,
evolutionarily-speaking, they’re now

the new equivalent of ancient Neanderthals—
even if raw and still twitching, on the run
or freshly harvested, the best of available
foodstuffs, delicious down to the last morsel.

Robert Borski did not begin to write poetry until he was well into the middle of his sixth decade—hence his frequent description of himself as a late-blooming child prodigy—but since then has had well over 200 poems published in such venues as Asimov’s, Dreams& Nightmares, Strange Horizons, and Star*Line, as well as a first collection of verse, Blood Wallah and Other Poems (Dark Regions Press). He continues to live in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, where he works on behalf of the state university system.

His Collection
By Valerie Grice

He has always loved the
soft Feet of women;
the scent
of lotion on pink Arches,
round, tender Heels
that feel like rose petals;
perfect Nails that glow
with an incandescence
that makes him scream.

In the beginning, surreptitiously
snapping photos of
beautiful Feet in sandals
at the grocery store;
adorable Feet with the
sweetest browned Toes
at the beach on vacation;
elegant Feet of the occasional
one night stand.
He wallpapers his bedroom with
Feet photos.
Eventually,his
photos weren’t enough.
He craved real Feet
to touch and hold;
real Toes to put in his
mouth and suck on;
his very own Toe candy.
Growing feverish with desire for
real Feet, he cleaned out a space in his
dusty basement,
installed the equipment he needed, and began
his collection.

The bodies,
he discarded like trash
anywhere that was convenient;
the nearby woods under the
fragrant pine needles,
or a trash can
in an unfamiliar neighborhood;
first, slicing off the Feet,
and preserving them
as he learned to do
in the taxidermy class he took
as preparation.
Through the years, his collection
of Feet
grew to impressive proportions.
Naturally, he had his favorites.
Perhaps the Toenails
were painted a lovely shade of
palest lilac, or
the Toes were perfectly straight;
little fleshy soldiers.
But , like a father with his children,
he loved them all.
Sometimes, after his nightly foray
into the basement to dust and fondle
his collection,
he would return upstairs,
pour a glass
of his favorite wine,
and slowly sip it.

Bio from Valerie Grice: It was 1970. My mother had purchased a book with the ominous title, In Cold Blood. Of course, being a curious pre-teen, I was compelled to sneak that book into my room every night,( Mom had forbidden me to read it, of course, as she was worried about my tender psyche) and,pretending to be asleep,I would devour as much as I possibly could, placing it back in its spot on the bookshelf each day. Mom never knew I had read that entire book in just a few, secretive nights.

That frightening story was my introduction to a lifelong fascination with both the horror genre in all of its various forms,and with the deviant behavior that some humans are capable of. My family jokes that I can recite facts about serial killers like a savant, and throughout the strange and winding road of my life, I have encountered quite a few real life psychopaths. Did they find me, or did I find them? And, do I really want to know the answer to that question?
I love poetry. I have always loved poetry. I love to read it, at least as much as I love to write it, always keenly appreciating the wonderful licence that poetry gives the poet… permission to condense an entire story into a few, cleanly perfect lines.

Currently, I live in a little cottage home, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a husband and two old cats. My three children are grown, with their own children. For more decades that I want to reveal, my day job has been nursing the sick back to health; and at night, my creative energy unleashed, I create and sell raw gemstone jewelry, and write about the aberrant, soul-less people that inhabit my mind.

To The Next Priest
By Ann Schwader

Barbarians, you call us, heretics
Who sacrifice the sanctity of death
On superstition’s altar. With our sticks
& stones, we fracture ribs & stop the breath
Once more to anchor our ancestral dead
Past restlessness—or that undying thirst
No grave constrains. Nor prayer. Good words said
Make no more difference than the very worst
At moonrise on that third night after. Come,
Keep watch with us. The freshest mounds crack wide
Enough to show—almost—what strains inside
Against our sharpened staves & break-jaw bricks
Rammed home with love. Shriek till your throat bleeds numb,
& see then if you call us heretics.

Ann K. Schwader is a 2010 Bram Stoker Award Finalist (poetry collection, Wild Hunt of the Stars) and a Rhysling Award recipient. Her most recent collection is Twisted in Dream (Hippocampus Press, 2011). Her web site is http://home.earthlink.net/~schwader

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