October has come back around, and with it the opportunity to indulge in all things spooky: horror movies; ghost stories; and—yes—poetry. I compiled my first list of Halloween poems in 2020; my second in 2023. The cauldron has yet to run dry, so this year I bring yet another collection of poems celebrating the macabre, the eerie, the weird and otherworldly…
“I Grew Up in a Haunted House” by Tylor James
I stood frozen
before the mirror;
a living statue,
heart palpitating.
My spine a lightning rod…
Our first poem—dedicated to Ray Bradbury—explores, with deliciously unsettling imagery, the terror that comes with grappling with the concept of death for the first time, during childhood. That fear of fading away follows the narrator into adulthood and haunts him with both its inevitability and the prospect that, in a sense, it may have already come to pass.
“The Haunted” by John Masefield
Here, in this darkened room of this old house,
I sit beside the fire. I hear again,
Within, the scutter where the mice carouse,
Without, the gutter dropping with the rain…
We move now from one haunted house to another, rendered in terrifyingly vivid detail by Masefield. This house has been made haunted by its inhabitants, and subsequently it has begun to take on a life of its own, encroaching on any mortal who enters.
“Samhain” by Annie Finch
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor…
In this atmospheric, autumnal poem, Annie Finch celebrates Samhain—the Gaelic festival from which Halloween can trace its origins—by drawing the reader’s attention to its timing, at a sort of tipping-point in the year, when summer has faded and autumn begins to cede ground to the dark and chill of winter.
“There She Is” by Linda Gregg
When I go into the garden, there she is.
The specter holds up her arms to show
that her hands are eaten off.
She is silent because of the agony.
There is blood on her face.
I can see she has done this to herself…
Perhaps my favourite poem on this year’s list, “There She Is”conveys a short horror story in sparse and unsettling free verse. Who is the titular She, and what does she represent?—this is left for you, the reader, to decide.
“The Truth About Doppelgängers” by Crystal Sidell
You have to know what you’re looking for. I learned this
after—after I glimpsed their not-quite white saw-edgedteeth in my peripheral vision, neatly filed
and gleaming when I dared to look straight at them…
I spoke too soon: I think this one might be my favourite. Lavish and dark, laced with subtly vampiric imagery, Sidell’s verse explores the classic Gothic theme of the doppelgänger.
“Ghost in the Land of Skeletons” by Christopher Kennedy
If not for flesh’s pretty paint, we’re just a bunch of skeletons, working hard to deny the fact of bones. Teeth remind me that we die. That’s why I never smile, except when looking at a picture of a ghost…
Recommended by a commenter on last year’s article, this short prose poem offers a fond look at ghosts and spirits, reminding us that they are us—just a step or two removed.
“A Child’s Nightmare” by Robert Graves
Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear…
There’s something uniquely awful about having a vivid nightmare as a child. Of course, adults have nightmares too, but by adulthood we have a lot more context about the world that makes those nightmares easier to shake loose in the day. The nightmares of childhood, though, are longer-lived, kept fresh in our minds by their abstract and inexplicable nature. In this nightmare, the shadowy figure standing at the child’s bed repeats the word “Cat!” like an omen—and there’s something strangely horrible about it, especially when it’s hard to gauge what the word means, in this context.
“Anna, Possession (1981)” by Claire C. Holland
A blade in her back,
it threatens to bubble up from inside,to pour from her prone and twisting
body, everywhere, frothinginto cracks in the cement, heavy
like paint…
This poem, which follows the the character of Anna, played by Isabelle Adjani in Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 psychological horror film Possession, can be found in Holland’s anthology, I Am Not Your Final Girl. In the book, “[e]ach poem is based on a fictional character from horror cinema, and explores the many ways in which women find empowerment through violence and their own perceived monstrousness.”
“Allegiances” by Emily Berry
Morning is a gown put on at midnight, but no one’s coming
I don’t know what your secrets are
You say you have no secrets but I can feel them,
they’re bumps under the blanket
You do not let me in…
Suspicion suffuses this poem by Emily Berry, which follows its narrator through the small hours of the night. Read along and think of stories of betrayal, subterfuge, enemies kept close to the chest.
The Girl in the Green Silk Gown by Seanan McGuire
Once and twice and thrice around,
Put your heart into the ground.
Four and five and six tears shed,
Give your love unto the dead…
What’s this? A novel has crept onto the poetry list? This book (and its poetry) is another recommendation from a commenter on last year’s list. It follows a hitchhiking ghost on a mission to track down her killer—an excellent premise for a Halloween read! Bear in mind, though, that it is the second in a series, and you may want to start at the beginning.
“Field of Skulls” by Mary Karr
For you: a field of skulls, angled jaws
and eye-sockets, a zillion scooped-out crania.
They’re plain once you think to look…
Next on the list, another poem that stirs up an atmosphere of paranoia and dread. Karr conjures horrific visions from a simple starting point; a question many of us have asked ourselves at different moments in our lives: what waits out there in the dark?
“Necropolitan” by Scott Cairns
Not your ordinary ice cream, though the glaze
of these skeletal figures affects
the disposition of those grinning candies
one finds in Mexico, say, at the start of November…
The strange, dark, sugared imagery Cairns conjures in this poem calls to mind the calaveras made to celebrate the Day of the Dead, or Halloween trick-or-treaters receiving their spooky rewards (though ice cream doesn’t usually feature on that menu). There’s a morbid humour in the picture it paints.
“October” by Bobbi Katz
October is when jack-o’-lanterns
grin in the darkness
and
strange company crunches
across the rumple of dry leaves
to ring a doorbell…
Lastly, an atmospheric poem that encapsulates the excitement of October and the thrilling approach of Halloween, as it grows ever closer…
What are your plans for Halloween this year? And are there any other poems you find particularly appropriate for the season? Let me know in the comments!
