Local author offers poems of spirits, seasons, Halloween
From staff reports
I Awaken In October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween is the debut speculative poetry collection from northern Michigan author Scott J. Couturier, published October 2022 by Jackanapes Press. Mr. Couturier is a Rhysling-nominated poet and prose writer of the strange, liminal, and darkly fantastic, whose work has appeared in numerous venues since 2017. These include Tales from the Magician’s Skull, Space and Time Magazine, Weirdbook, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Spectral Realms, the premier speculative poetry journal edited by Weird fiction scholar S. T. Joshi. Couturier also works as a developmental and content editor for Mission Point Press, a Traverse City-based publishing house. His first collection of Weird and horror short stories, The Box, was released in 2022 by Hybrid Sequence Media. He lives in Traverse City.
I Awaken In October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween contains 60 poems evoking themes of seasonal change, supernatural incursion, folk tales and harvest time, autumn, and (above all) Halloween. Featuring a stunning cover and numerous internal illustrations by Dan Sauer, owner of Jackanapes Press, I Awaken In October is an evocative journey deep into the ember-heart of October, where old memories stir to ghostly life and the fire of the leaves sears one’s very soul; where primordial spirits stalk the gloaming, and jack-o-lanterns peer from every porch. Where Harvest Home is always calling, the scythe sharpened and grain gathered in, rites to celebrate a bountiful harvest begun; where oak and ash stand in solemn majesty beneath a pale and foreboding Hunter’s Moon, prickle of unseen hands trailing along one’s skin. In the tradition of the great Weird poets Clark Ashton Smith and Edgar Allen Poe, these Gothic paeans to nature’s power, to ghosts and witches and all things Weird, will stir your blood to fright on a chill fall night.
“In poems ranging from sonnets to free verse, Scott J. Couturier evokes the power of Nature and the weight of the past–especially the primitive festivals of Samhain, Halloween, and the Yuletide–as elements of terror that continue to resonate today,” said S. T. Joshi, scholar and author, editor of Spectral Realms. “Dan Sauer’s vivid illustrations are the perfect complement to the brooding dread that we find in every one of Scott’s poetic vignettes.”
Awaken In October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween is available for purchase through Jackanapes Press, Amazon, and locally at Horizon Books in Traverse City.
I Awaken In October by Scott J. Couturier
I awaken in October,
just as gaunt ghost-tapers are lit:
I awaken in October as bat
& brume about chimney-hole flit.
I awaken in October
as sheaves shiver in evening’s gloam;
I awaken in October as blue
moon’s forebear rises, pale as bone.
I awaken in October,
from a September’s restless sleep:
scent of decay’s succor rises
from heaps of fiery leaves, mounded deep.
I awaken in October,
to a spirit’s soft-speaking voice:
fae-folk fret ‘mid the clover
as ruddy Jack-o’-Lanterns rejoice.
I awaken in October,
as from some dim-remembered dream –
all shores foreign save this strand
from whence witch-fires lurid gleam.
I awaken in October,
not once or twice, but thrice –
ghosts stalk the waning grain-stubble
docking tails from all the mice.
I awaken in October,
& fear now to sleep again,
lest this far & fair country should
fade, leaving only November’s pain.
I awaken in October,
sworn to season’s mystic writ –
I awaken in October, ah!
the enchantment & devout Mystery of it.
