BEAUTIFUL GROTESQUE

I was planning on calling my next book from Hippocampus Press The Tangled Muse and Others -- but, I dimly remember, a wee while back I suggested to Jerad that we call my Centipede Press omnibus The Tangled Muse, but I never got confirmation from him. He just sent me the book as file and it is called, I rejoice to say, The Tangled Muse. This I need a new title for ye Hippocampus collection, and I think I'd like to call it Beautiful Grotesque. That seems a good title for a book that is utterly arty and overflows with prose poetry of a macabre nature. Thus far ye Contents is up to 30,000 words and includes these new prose poems:

An Identity in Dream (484 words)
Artifice (226 words)
Cesare (236 words)
Hempen Rope (474 words)
House of Legend (622 words)
Keepsake (309 words)
Postcard from Prague (165 words)

and the following reprints:

"Cathedral of Death" (534 words)
Necronomicon (462 words)
Sickness of Heart (455 words)
In Memoriam: Oscar Wilde (2,073 words)
In Remembrance: Edgar A. Poe (3,340 words)
The Tangled Muse (6,094 words)
Uncommon Places (15,056 words)

I am currently working on a prose poem sequence, "Letters from an Old Gent," that I hope will reach 10,000 words. Then lots and lots of wee prose poems. I've been studying the prose poem form, and especially those prose poems by Oscar Wilde, H. P. Lovecraft, Samuel Loveman, Donald Wandrei and Clark Ashton Smith. It's a refreshing book to work on because it's so different from my usual thing -- and I get to be art-up-ye-arse, which is so delightful.

Comments

  1. Sounds good.

    Any chance you may try to do something for the Monsters & Mormons anthology?

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  2. The what? Is it real? Never heard of it, unless in my absent-mindedness I did but don't recall.

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  3. Oh, I HAVE heard of it!!! I read of it on the Motley Vision site. I doubt that I'll do anything for it because I am concentrating so obsessively on writing me new books. I've just revised my sequel to Bloch's "The Cheaters" cos the ending was wimpy, and in doing so added another 400 words, so now the tale is almost 8,000 words and the ending is much improv'd.

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  4. I like "Beautiful Grotesque"--the phrase also features prominently in James Grant's lovely song "Belle of My Burlesque".

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  5. Many thnaks for alerting me to James Grant! I just went to Amazon and listened to the samples of MY THRAWN GLORY and was so impressed I downloaded ye MP3. He seems deliciously dark. Maybe listening to him will inspire me to get out of this creative funk into which I've fallen. I'm finding it hard to spill my weird fiction out of my head.

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  6. Just did a Google search on "Beautiful Grotesque" -- and it has been widely used. So, I need to find another title for me book. Sigh. I really liked BEAUTIFUL GROTESQUE.

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  7. Yay, I'm glad you like James Grant! The title track from "Sawdust In My Veins" is also deliciously dark.

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