Table Of ContentIntroduction: Distorting Mirrors, Split Selves, and the Origin of Monsters ALIENS AND HUMAN MONSTERS NEIL GAIMAN The Day the Saucers Came STEPHEN KING The Dark Man CALEY O''DWYER My Parents Were Monsters ELIZABETH BISHOP The Man-Moth NIN ANDREWS The Invisible Girl RICK BURSKY The Man with a Hole in His Head TONY BARNSTONE Nightmare Kiss WILLIAM BAER Monster WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Strange Bedfellows: Caliban and Trinculo (From The Tempest) DENNIS COOPER Ugly Man ANTHONY MADRID The Milk One ALICE NOTLEY From The Descent of Alette AUGUST KLEINZAHLER Monsters CHRIS DAVIDSON My Son Throws Sticks in the River PATRICIA SMITH Bride EDWARD FIELD The Bride of Frankenstein JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT Bride SUZANNE LUMMIS To His Shy Mistress (Broken Rules Series) GRANT HIER The Surgeon Turns the Scalpel on Himself MEAGHAN REYNOLDS Lilith to Eve SAMANTHA WOEHL Eve on Exodus MICHAEL HULSE The Secret History THOM GUNN Hitch-Hiker JOHN FITZGERALD Tacoma BRYAN DIETRICH Lizzie Borden ANON. From The Death of King Arthur ROBERT BROWNING The Laboratory CHARLES HARPER WEBB Manpanzee, JAMES TATE The Cowboy ALEX MORRIS Signs JIM BARNES On Hearing the News That Hitler Was Dead TOMASZ RO´ZYCKI Ants and Sharks WITCHES, WIZARDS, MAGICIANS, AND FAERIE CREATURES MADISON CAWEIN The Town Witch PAMELA MCCLURE Witch Lament LI HE A Piece for Magic Strings ORIANA IVY Baba Yaga REBECCA DUNHAM Encaged, as by God''s Good Rage ROBERT FROST The Witch of Coos PIERRE DE RONSARD Invective Against Denise, a Witch WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The Weird Sisters (From Macbeth) JAMES WELDON JOHNSON The White Witch ANDREJS PUMPURS From Bearslayer J. W. DEFOREST The Monsters Dance (From The Gentle Earl) MIROSLAV HOLUB Zito the Magician ANON. From The Sultan of Babylon J. R. R. TOLKIEN Troll sat alone on his seat of stone TOM SLEIGH From New York American Spell, 2001 OVID Macareus''s Tale of Circe''s Island (From Ovid''s Metamorphoses) BAI JUYI The Man Who Dreamed of Fairies JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Erl-King NUALA NI´ DHOMHNAIL The Fairy Hitch-Hiker THOMAS CAMPION Thrice tosse these Oaken ashes in the ayre A. E. STALLINGS Fairy-Tale Logic BESTIARY JEANNINE HALL GAILEY Here There Be Monsters STANLEY MOSS The Man Tree JORGE LUIS BORGES To the Mirror TED HUGHES Wodwo MICHELLE MITCHELL-FOUST Aries at Mulling Manor MICHAEL LONGLEY Spiderwoman CHARLES BAUDELAIRE To Each His Chimera ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON The Kraken GWENDOLYN MACEWEN The Death of the Loch Ness Monster HOMER The Sirens (From The Odyssey) JUAN FELIPE HERRERA La Sirena MARIANO ZARO Sireno / Merboy BISHOP THEOBALDUS From The Bestiary: Sirens, The Honocentaur GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE From The Bestiary; or Orpheus'' Procession: The Serpent, Jellyfish, Sirens, The Octopus ROBERT LOWELL From Mermaid ANNIE FINCH The Last Mermother ALLYSON SHAW Mermaid Surgery STEPHEN TRASK Origin of Love ANON. HAWAIIAN The Woman Who Married a Caterpillar NED BALBO A Creature in Love ROY MASH Creature from the Black Lagoon EDMUND SPENSER The Quelling of the Blatant Beast (From The Faerie Queene) OSCAR WILDE From The Sphinx KRYSTAL VALLADARES Medusa ROBERT OLEN BUTLER Medusa LOUISE BOGAN Medusa BISHOP PATRICK OF IRELAND Of Men Who Turn Themselves into Wolves CARSEN WEST Brother, Sister CHRISTOPHER MERRILL The Reunion BONNIE JO STUFFLEBEAM The Werewolf WILLIAM BLAKE The Tyger LAWRENCE RAAB Attack of the Crab Monsters EDGAR ALLAN POE The Conqueror Worm TESS TAYLOR The Visitor JENNIFER CLEMENT Scarecrow ALLEN GINSBERG The Lion for Real JOSHUA DAVIS The Patchwork Horses CATHERINE TUFARIELLO Bête Noire ERIC ORMSBY Antlion WILLIAM MORRIS Regin Tells of Fafnir''s Transformation (From The Story of Sigurd the Volsung) APOLLONIUS OF RHODES The Never-Sleeping Dragon, Guardian of the Golden Fleece (From Jason and the Argonauts) ILYSE KUSNETZ The Birth of Godzilla HOMER The Cyclops (From The Odyssey) ISHMAEL REED The Black Cock ANON. Beowulf Battles Grendel (From Beowulf) LEWIS CARROLL Jabberwocky THEODOR GEISEL (DR. SEUSS) Mr. Grinch Acknowledgments
SynopsisMonster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman brings to life a colorful menagerie of fantastical creatures from across the ages. Humans have always defined themselves by imagining the inhuman; the gloriously gruesome monsters that enliven our literary legacy haunt us by reflecting our own darkest possibilities. The poems gathered here range in focus from extreme examples of human monstrousness--murderers, cannibals, despotic Byzantine empresses--to the creatures of myth and nightmare: dragons, sea serpents, mermaids, gorgons, sirens, witches, and all sorts of winged, fanged, and fire-breathing grotesques. The ghastly parade includes Beowulf 's Grendel, Homer's Circe, William Morris's Fafnir, Lewis Carroll's Jabberwock, Robert Lowell's man-eating mermaid, Oriana Ivy's Baba Yaga, Thom Gunn's take on Jeffrey Dahmer, and Shakespeare's hybrid creature Caliban, of whom Prospero famously concedes, "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." Monster Verse is both a delightful carnival of literary horror and an entertainingly provocative investigation of what it means to be human.