Tony Barnstone, Michelle Mitchell-Foust Poems of the Dead and Undead

Annotation

This selection of poems from across the ages brings to life a staggering array ofzombies, ghosts, vampires, and devils. Our culture's current obsession with zombiesand vampires is only the latest form of a fascination with crossing the boundary betweenthe living and the dead that has haunted humans since we first began writing. The poeticevidence gathered here ranges from ancient Egyptian inscriptions and theMesopotamian epic Gilgamesh to the Greek bard Homer, and from Shakespeare andMilton and Keats to Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. Here too are terrifyingapparitions from a host of more recent poets, from T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath to RitaDove and Billy Collins, from Allen Ginsberg and H. P. Lovecraft to Mick Jagger and ShelSilverstein.