I Awaken in October: Poems of Folk Horror and Halloween

Author: Couturier, Scott J.

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 150

Release Date: 13-09-2022

Part Number: Refer to Sapnet.

Details: SCOTT J. COUTURIER has distinguished himself with poems of uncanny beauty and dread, appearing in the pages of Spectral Realms, The Audient Void, Eternal Haunted Summer, and other journals of the Weird. His poems are singularly sensitive to the darker aspects of nature. Jackanapes Press is pleased to offer I Awaken in October—Couturier’s first volume of poetry—which collects a cornucopia of seasonal horrors and autumnal delights.

In I Awaken In October, rites of autumnal adulation are performed alongside offerings to every phase of the Year’s Wheel, seasons sequentially explored through lenses of veneration, dread, and supernatural awe. All wending back to that most bittersweet of moments, when once more we awaken—just as the dead do—to October’s majesty. Follow the path to Summer’s end, where the last gold-litten days malinger into cobweb; where gleaming trails of jack-o -lanterns light the way; where Queen Mab and Cernunnos reign.

“Let me reveal something about I Awaken In October. It’s not just a book of dark, uncanny folk poems—it’s a portal. And through it we perceive again, we course-correct the psyche. A brilliant, haunting collection that bridges the gap.” —Jay Sturner, naturalist and author of The Hunchback’s Captive and Others

“Scott J. Couturier’s poems are spirited paeans to the Season of the Pumpkin. With roots delving down into the fertile black earth, these agricultural incantations draw up the very primal sap whence autumn swells in all her fecund abundance. In these pages, as in nature, life fades into decay, and decay, a noxious bubbling cauldron, gives fungal fruit to new life—and so the Wheel turns. With all the sorcerous insight of a druid under nature’s trance, this rare bard of grain and gourd takes us on a journey from spring’s beginning to summer’s end, and to the hibernal realm of dreams beyond. But when you awaken from that winter sleep, it may be that you will not awaken in the gladness of spring; it may be that you will awaken—once again—in October.” —K. A. Opperman, author of Past the Glad and Sunlit Season: Poems for Halloween

“I Awaken in October is a striking testimonial to the continued fascination of the season of autumn in our culture. 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. Dan Sauer’s vivid illustrations are the perfect complement to the brooding dread that we find in every one of Scott’s poetic vignettes.” —S. T. Joshi, editor of Spectral Realms

“Scott J. Couturier’s I Awaken in October is a sublime poetic celebration of the shadow side of the year. Beginning with picturesque paeans to the season and its pagan observances, one is then grasped by the hair, joining Couturier in a nightmarish hayride through a haunted realm of infernal rites and yawning graveyards teeming with benighted spirits and fiendish beings. This book is a perfect read for those long autumnal nights, under a blanket by the hearth, with a mulled libation to ward off the eventide chill. Just remember to retain a burning candle as well, to keep the dark and its attendant entities at bay.” —Manuel Arenas, author of Book of Shadows: Grim Tales and Gothic Fancies

EAN: 9781956702095

Package Dimensions: 9.0 x 6.0 x 0.5 inches

Languages: English