Happy 122nd Birthday, H.P. Lovecraft.

As many know, the early 20th century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft was a significant influence on my own work, despite a great many controversies regarding his character and themes. But I think his body of work is still worth wrestling with, both his, and the work of those he influenced, as much as we wrestle with Shakespeare. He was complicated, a man of almost innumerable phobias and the verbiage to describe them. He had an uncanny knack to make some of the most ordinary, everyday observances take on a most bizarre cast.

Among my short stories, they almost always incorporated Lovecraftian elements regarding cosmic unknowability where human action is minute and almost meaningless in the face of the infinite, where, try as you might to order the cosmos, the cosmos won't be ordered about by the likes of you. Key among those short stories have been:

"What Hides and What Returns," Historical Lovecraft, Innsmouth Free Press, 2011
"A Model Apartment," Innsmouth Free Press, Issue 4, 2010
"The Dog at the Camp," Tales of the Unanticipated, Autumn, 2006
"The True Tale of Yer," Bamboo Among the Oaks, MN Historical Society Press, 2002
"A Dream of Laaj," Paj Ntaub Voice, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2000

There are many of my speculative poems that have also been influenced by Lovecraft's work that might not be as obvious. Certainly the influence is clear in "The Deep Ones" but I would also recommend you consider a poem like "What Kills A Man," "Observing the Oblivious," "Moments in the Eye" or "Her Body, My Monuments."

But I'll be discussing all of this and more at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in September in California! I look forward to seeing you there!