Sonnets of the Midnight Hours by Donald Wandrei is one of the reasons I love the old Farnsworth Wright Weird Tales. Poetry in Weird Tales started with Wright’s first issue, November 1924. He used H. P. Lovecraft’s “To a Dreamer”. Poetry remained to the end with Dorothy Quick’s “This Night”. This was the last thing to appear in the final issue September 1954.
The reason I love it isn’t that he used poetry. It is that in the early issues writers, especially those collected around HPL, hadn’t calcified into a cliche “Cthulhu Mythos”. Wandrei offers up his own vision of horrific poetry, influenced by Lovecraft but not overwhelmed by him.
Wright wanted to make sure fans knew this was a series. Each poem bore the same Hugh Rankin illustration of the weird creature with a lute and the sad-looking naked woman.
“The Hungry Flowers” (Weird Tales, May 1928) is a tale of man-eating plants. A popular theme in Weird Tales. In fourteen lines, Wandrei does what Scott Smith did in an entire novel.
“Dream Horror” (Weird Tales, May 1928) is a creepy description of someone buried alive (not a natural person but perhaps a vampire?) and how they will wait underground.
“Purple” (Weird Tales, June 1928) gives a vision in purple, land, sea and dreamlands.
“The Eye” (Weird Tales, July 1928) a man fights his inability to lift the blind and see the gigantic eye looking back. Frank Belknap Long wrote an early story with this idea.
“The Grip of Evil Dream” (Weird Tales, August 1928) the narrator dreams he is in a terrible charnal house, and a ghoulish being comes and licks his neck. Fortunately, he wakes!
“As I Remember” (Weird Tales, September 1928) This time the narrator isn’t so lucky.
“The Statues” (Weird Tales, October 1928) has an Egyptian feel with laughing monuments and sleek black leopards.
“The Creatures” (Weird Tales, November 1928) tales us to a terrible swamp and flapping wings. The narrator isn’t fast enough to save his face.
“The Head” (Weird Tales, December 1928) has severed heads that do strange things.
“The Red Specter” (Weird Tales, January 1929) gives us another strange figure and plenty of blood.
“Doom” (Weird Tales, February 1929) gives us the final moment when only Death remains.
“A Vision of the Future” (Weird Tales, March 1929) goes to the end of the world when the oceans have dried and give up their terrible secrets.
These twelve poems, followed by others but not published by Wright or even Weird Tales, form an intriguing Lovecraftian panorama. Most are offered as dream visions, unforgiving and bleak. There is so much to admire and relish here. Way more fun than another August Derleth imitation, filled with cliche books and very few chills. I have always admired Donald Wandrei, all too often forgotten. As with his fiction like “The Tree Men of M’Bwa” or “The Red Brain”, he is a master at creeping us out with just the right amount of mystery. His ability with poetry knows the same sure hand. I don’t care what Marvin Kaye says about Weird Tales poetry, any fan of creepy imagery would miss out to ignore these poems.
