Schwartz on Gramlich

Spec House author Greg Schwartz (who has a new broadside out by the way, scroll down) has written a review of Charles Gramlich's Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. I thought I'd pass it along here...


Review: Wanting the Mouth of a Lover by Charles Gramlich
Wanting the Mouth of a Lover is a chapbook of 23 dark haiku by Charles Gramlich, a name well-known by the many fans of his Talera novels. The poems in this collection tend toward the vampirific (if that's a word), but there are some other just plain creepy ones, like this little gem:

faint
laughters
clowns
in
the
dark

Gramlich seems quite at ease writing haiku. Each poem is given its own page, which might anger tree-huggers, but I happen to think it's the best way to present haiku. They are also written in the vertical Japanese style, which you don't see very much of these days. I can only think of one other poet who uses that style consistently.

The chapbook was originally available in a regular and deluxe edition, but the deluxe edition (which came signed, hand-numbered, and hand-stitched) sold out within a week. The regular edition is still available, and it contains an introduction by the author that touches on both the poems in the book and the haiku form itself.

black
soul
aches
in
the
night
she
comes

Gramlich is a skilled speculative poet. His poems have appeared in Dreams & Nightmares and The Shantytown Anomaly, among other magazines, but Wanting the Mouth of a Lover is his first collection of poetry. Hopefully there will be more.

Copies are available from Spec House of Poetry for $5 plus shipping.


Reviewed by Greg Schwartz on his Haiku & Horror blog.