Terrors of Today – Denise Dumars

The Apocalypse Will Not Be Televised, and Neither Is the Effect of the Hurricane on Cuba by Denise Dumars Auctober Apocalypto   The blossoms are red and the cat is white but ashes darken his fur (what do they say of cats after dark?)  A deep grey-purple has boiled the sky It’s a time of pumpkin spice death a gas mask and a hazmat suit    My mother wakes and cannot breathe the EMT truck is as red as hibiscus Have you any pumpkin spice pan de muertos? Do the teeth of the dead still gnash?   (Will the white…

Terrors of Today: L Marie Wood

Inside Out by L. Marie Wood Inside out what’s inside bared to the air tender to the touch red and slick hothouse musk. Voice loud my mind Loud in the sky Loud  Because it can be Private for me but I’m flayed for the world to see. Open cavity. Open skull. Open mind. Open shell. A husk to be filled with your words your thoughts your wants your desires you you you alone you whole you bold. Of me there’s no consequence. Of me there’s no gain. All taken with the edge of the blade lain to cut to sever,…

Terrors of Today: Angela Yuriko Smith

Newsfast: Menu for the Machine by Angela Yuriko Smith Thoughts are deadly gossamer, silvery filaments breaching the vacant void to reach me. Dangers tremble along my neural networks, each tentative vibration a warning that there is a ghost in the machine, a viral bug, a broken code. I see it in the clouds, weighted low with toxins. I taste it in the dew, flavored gray, wilting skin and organs from within. Language spewed to skew cellular structures, warping what began as holy into what ends in despair and disrepair. It takes one thought to derail a system, one word to…

Terrors of Today: Pedro Iniguez

The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End By Pedro Iniguez This poem originally appeared in Star*Line #45.3, 2022   Their atoms dust the floors of every school in the country; those frightened children we can no longer console.   Their cries have faded into inaudible wavelengths inside a quantum world where hugs and spacetime both cease to exist.   They have dissolved into mere fractions of their corporeal selves, their particles swept into dustpans and mopped into oblivion.   Blame those new blasters inundating the market, stowed inside scores of scruffy backpacks; the preferred choice of disgruntled…

Terrors of Today: Modern Horror Poetry

Terrors of Today: Modern Horror Poetry It’s been 180 years since Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Raven,” the poem that turned him into an overnight success, only four years before his life was tragically cut short at just forty years of age. The official cause of death was "congestion of the brain,” sometimes used as a euphemism for alcoholism-related mortality of the era. In honor of this morbid Bostonian, we honor Dark Poetry Day on the anniversary of his death (October 7) rather than his birthday.  He is one in a long list of dark poets, from Phyllis Wheatley, William…

HWA Poetry Showcase Volume XII Now Open for Submissions

The HWA is proud to announce that it will call for submissions from its members for the HWA Poetry Showcase Volume XII beginning April 1, 2025. Maxwell I. Gold will be the editor for the volume. This year’s judges, along with Maxwell, will include Jewelle Gomez, Jonathan Maberry, Cynthia Pelayo, and Bryan Thao Worra. Maxwell I. Gold has agreed to take over as the editor for the next two volumes to follow HWA Poetry Showcase volumes XIII and XIV. The cover for Showcase Volume XII will be designed and illustrated by Dan V. Sauer. Only HWA members (of any status)…

Carina Bissett reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Carina Bissett joins us today with a reading of their poem, "A Lacing of Lavender" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmw0QL5oNIk Carina Bissett is a writer and poet working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple journals and anthologies including What Remains, Upon a Twice Time, Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales, Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Weird…

Madison McSweeney reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Madison McSweeney joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Cannibal Mutant Maneating Spider" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IGkcyHYjXQ Madison McSweeney is the author of The Doom That Came to Mellonville (Filthy Loot), The Forest Dreams With Teeth (Demain Publishing), and the poetry collection Fringewood (Alien Buddha Press). Her short fiction has appeared in American Gothic Short Stories and Zombie Punks F*ck Off. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, blogs at…

Corinne Hughes reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Corinne Hughes joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Meadows" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIXBEUR6b_8 Corinne Hughes is a queer poet and fiction writer. Her work has been supported by Tin House and the National Book Foundation. Her poetry can be found in Passengers Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, Cirque Journal, Grim and Gilded, and is forthcoming in the next SMEOP anthology by Black Sunflowers Poetry Press. She currently serves…

Rook Riley reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Rook Riley joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Strange Geometry" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OWxGKNuEUw Rook Riley is a horror author, game enthusiast, and all-around linguistic badass trained in Krav Maga and spoon warfare.  Hobbies include binge-watching Netflix and collecting tattoos.

Colleen Anderson reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Colleen Anderson joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Our Lady of Holy Death" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYEZ_3YE0kI Colleen Anderson is a multiple award nominee, with poetry widely published in many venues, including Andromeda Spaceways, Lucent Dreaming, Shadow Atlas and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Colleen lives in Vancouver, BC and is a Canada Council and BC Arts Council grant recipient for writing and has performed her work before audiences…
RONI STINGER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

RONI STINGER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Roni Stinger reads her chilling poem "Hide and Seek in Haunted Spaces," one of the poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodP5LvCUpg Roni Stinger lives in the Pacific Northwest, USA with her husband and two cats.. Her poetry has been published in Under Her Skin, Hypnos Magazine, and HWA Poetry Showcase Volume VII, among others. She’s a member of the HWA, SFWA, and SFPA. You can find her online at www.ronistinger.com and on Twitter @roni_stinger.
CASSONDRA WINDWALKER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

CASSONDRA WINDWALKER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Cassondra Windwalker reads a haunting poem "Conflagration," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCRTL-yza1E Cassondra Windwalker is the author of the gothic horror HOLD MY PLACE, as well as the upcoming work of dark magical realism LOVE LIKE A CEPHALOPOD. Presently writing full-time from the coast of southern Alaska, she pretends at the poetry of small things and the languages of birds, beasts, and things with roots. She enjoys connecting with generally…
M LOPES da SILVA READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

M LOPES da SILVA READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

M Lopes da Silva reads a frighteningly approriate poem "there’s a haunted pornographic magazine in the woods," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItTmiuF_OEw M Lopes da Silva (he/they/she) is a non-binary and bisexual author from Los Angeles. They write pulp and poetry, and sometimes the two get mixed up together. Their queer Californian horror fiction has been published or is forthcoming from In Somnio: A Collection of Modern Gothic Horror Fiction,…
MEGHAN ARCURI READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

MEGHAN ARCURI READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Meghan Arcuri reads her heartbreaking and poignant poem "How Do I Tell Her?," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmiHfbxWuOo Meghan Arcuri is a Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author. Her work can be found in various anthologies, including Borderlands 7 (Borderlands Press), Madhouse (Dark Regions Press), Chiral Mad, and Chiral Mad 3 (Written Backwards). She is currently the Vice President of the Horror Writers Association. Prior to writing, she taught high school math,…
TEEL JAMES GLENN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

TEEL JAMES GLENN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

A chilling reading of "Homebound" by Teel James Glenn from the recently released HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://youtu.be/7MpD9nOg6Rw Teel James Glenn has killed hundreds and been killed more times--on stage and screen as he has traveled the world as a stuntman, swordmaster, storyteller, actor, and haunted house barker. His poetry and short stories have been printed in over two hundred publications including Weird Tales, Horror & Hope, A Woman Unbecoming, Space & Time, Mystery Weekly, Pulp…
GENEVE FLYNN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

GENEVE FLYNN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Geneve Flynn gives a wonderful reading of her poem "spoon against bone," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://youtu.be/860m9ak8fOk Geneve Flynn is an award-winning speculative fiction editor, author, and poet. She is the co-editor of Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Lee Murray). The anthology won the 2020 Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards and shortlisted for the British Fantasy, Aurealis, and Australian Shadows Awards. Geneve was assistant editor for Relics,…
GORDON LINZNER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

GORDON LINZNER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

To kick of the HWA Poetry Showcase readings we have a genuine New Yorker! Gordon Linzner will be reading his series of haiku "Triptych of Terror." If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://youtu.be/S2k_nVEitIM Gordon Linzner is founder and former editor of Space and Time Magazine, and author of three published novels and dozens of short stories in F&SF, Twilight Zone, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and numerous other magazines and anthologies, including Baker Street Irregulars II, Release the Virgins!, Footprints in the Stars,…
POETRY SHOWCASE HISTORY FROM AN EARLY ADOPTER

POETRY SHOWCASE HISTORY FROM AN EARLY ADOPTER

by Angela Yuriko Smith Were it not for Peter Adam Salomon and the HWA Showcase series he started, I might not be still poeting today. Our community is particularly kind to dark poets. From founding National Dark Poetry Day to be celebrated every October 7th (also a gift from Salomon, by the way) to getting the latest Poetry Showcase up in lights on Times Square NYC (thanks to current president John Palisano), the HWA brings the love to our scribblers of verse. Over the next few weeks the poets of HWA will be sharing their work from the Showcase in…