Adding a Splash of Spooky Poetry to the Mix

By Jennifer Adele

April is set as National Poetry Month each year, and it is a time for celebrating both poetry and the poets who write it. Not only is classical poetry often featured by famous readers throughout the month of April, but current poets often write and exhibit new works in honor of National Poetry Month. The poems offered up often flow through subjects as diverse across a spectrum as love and trauma, morning coffee and blades of grass, religious experiences and politics, empowerment and bereavement, etc.

But, aside from poems by Edgar Allan Poe, like The Raven (1845), most of the poetry often featured, at least from what I’ve seen lately, does not include much from the genres of horror and suspense. Yet, poetry is an excellent lyrical medium for horror. Poetry really does allow horror to do what it does best, which is to open people up to approach, understand, process, and release intense emotions.

Even as a young child, I can remember the sense of delightful haunting evoked by the poem Five Little Pumpkins (2003), which my mother used to read to me out of a board book every October, as it got close to Halloween. In fact, I heard the poem so many years in a row, and it is such a classic, that I can still repeat it word for word, by memory. This is a terrific example of how poetry and a dose of spookiness can come together in a powerful manner.

So, in honor of National Poetry Month, I offer up this original piece, by yours truly, on Dead Talk News, to bring a slice of horror to the proverbial pie.

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Oranges In The Snow

A Forgotten Doll (2021)

A forgotten old doll

Sits all alone,

In the dark, dusty attic

Of a small home.

Her cracked porcelain face

Looks just like a web,

And amid spiders she sits,

Casting an aura of dread.

One arm is broken,

And she’s missing an eye;

She feels rather sad,

And even lets lose a sigh.

Under some cobwebs,

The doll slightly shudders

Like she’s quaking with rage,

As she thinks of the others.

Other dolls that are all new

And lovely and shiny

Have taken her place,

As she’s grown so grimy.

In a quick flash of lightning

And a rumble of thunder,

From under the thick dust,

The doll starts to wonder.

What if she took back

That which she had before?

With her little legs now straight,

She moves towards the door.

Down into the house,

The doll remembers the way

Into the quaint bedroom,

Where she used to stay.

Under luxurious soft covers

And into the warm bed,

The doll crawls right next to

Where the girl lays her head.

For those who want a few more poems to read that touch upon horror and suspense for National Poetry Month, as it draws to a close, here is a link to six more spooky poems (typically reserved for the Halloween season, but really they’re delightful any time of the year)… Six Spooky Poems. I hope everyone enjoys the reading, and perhaps our readers here will be inspired to combine their own favorite horror subjects with the writing medium of poetry, too.