Academic Works

Killer Verse

Killer Verse
Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem is a spine-tingling collection of terrifically creepy poems about the deadly art of murder. The villains and victims who populate these pages range from Cain and Abel and Bluebeard and his wives to Lizzie Borden, Jack the Ripper, and Mafia hit men. The literary forms they inhabit are just as varied, from the colorful melodramas of old Scottish ballads to the hard-boiled poetry of twentieth-century noir, from lighthearted comic riffs to profound poetic musings on murder. Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy, W. H.
Academic Works

Conversation Pieces

Conversation Pieces
edited with Kurt Brown This utterly delightful anthology gathers poetic responses to other poems in a dialogue conducted across space and time. Here are poems that answer, argue with, update, elaborate on, mock, interrogate, or pay tribute to poems of the past. We hear Leda's view of the Swan; feel sympathy for La Belle Dame sans Merci, and find out how Marvell's coy mistress might have answered his appeal. Raleigh's famous reply to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" sparked a centuries-long debate that John Donne, William Carlos Williams, C.
Academic Works

The Bosom Serpent: Folklore and Popular Art

The Bosom Serpent: Folklore and Popular Art

In our high-tech, consumerist culture, traditional folklore has found itself revived in an eclectic mix of popular works from B-movies, TV shows, and superhero comics to pulp novels and supermarket tabloids. With a strong emphasis on narrative and very little reliance on aesthetics, these forms of popular entertainment have often defied analysis. The Bosom Serpent fills this gap by revealing the pervasive similarities between traditional folklore motifs and our contemporary forms of amusement.

Academic Works
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