Prea Press is one of the are few of specialty publishers out there today who are still actively producing outstanding and excellently made volumes of Weird verse of past masters and current ones! There are two books by Prea in particular that should be praised and found in any Smith (and some others) conisseurs library. They are Emperors of Dreams and Avatars of Wizardry. The Emperor of Dreams, Some Notes on Weird Poetry by S.T.Joshi is a little book (that) consists of a number of my previously published essays on weird poetry, some of them introductions to editions of poetry by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, George Sterling and others (The essay on Frank Belknap Longs poetry is original to this volume) My introduction supples a braod overview of the history of weird verse. It is followed by chapters on some of the more noteworthy poets of the twentieth century - George Sterling, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P.Lovecraft, Samuel Loveman, Donald Wandrei, and Frank Belknap Long - and a very brief study of several recent poets, picked somewhat at random out of the many that could been chosen for analysis. Included are such fine amd talented Poets as Donald Sydney-Fryer, Richard L. Tierney, Ann K. Schwader, Leigh Blackmore and Phillp A. Ellis, among others. One may not agree with some of Joshis analysis as it is just one mans educated opinion, but the biographical material alone is worth the price of the book ($15 dollars American). Avatars of Wizardry is an excellent collection of Poetry Inspired by George Sterlings A Wine of Wizardry and Clark Ashton Smiths The Hashish-Eater and it is quite nicely edited by Charles Lovecraft with a Forward by S.T. Joshi. Not since Ballantine published New Worlds For Old (Edited, with Introduction and Notes by Lin Carter) has A Wine and The Hashish-Eater been published together in such a beautiful volume which makes this new book such a prize. The Table of Contents reads like a Whos Who of todays finest Poets of the Fantasque. They are Richard L. Tierney, Leigh Blackmore, Alan Gullette, Bruce Boston, Earl Livings, Wade German, Michael Fantina and Kyla Lee Ward. If one enjoys the long poetry adventure into Fantasy and the non-mundane so mastered by such greats as Sterling and Smith (perhaps a touch of Frank B. Long), this is well worth checking out
Posted on: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 01:13:29 +0000
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