Autumn Lauds: Poems for the Halloween Season

Autumn. The liminal season, threshold between summer’s end and winter’s austere onset. A time of mounting darkness and blazing lights, of deadening leaves and livening spirits. AUTUMN LAUDS: POEMS FOR THE HALLOWEEN SEASON celebrates this exceptional time of year and the cherished holiday that falls at its center. The collection is divided into two sections of thirty-one poems each; the first, “Miscellaneous Praise,” invokes the sights and scenes, the rituals and events in which so many take delight and find fright. A legendized region by the name of Sleepy Hollow is revisited, as is a lonesome October nightscape out of Poe, and due homage is paid to the undisputed king of the October Country. The second section, “Angry Villager Anthology,” gathers the dramatic monologues of the people of Grantwood, who have finally (on the penultimate eve of October) captured the monster that has been bedeviling their town all month long. Now the blood-lusting mob plans to parade the creature through the streets, and then end the procession with a public execution in the town square. En route to their destination, the angry villagers fill in the back story of the monster’s misdeeds but at the same time expose the dark heart of their own community.