Freakcidents

by Michael A. Arnzen; art by GAK
Shocklines Press
Signed/limited trade edition ($9.95)
Signed/numbered hardcover edition ($50)

Poetry in the horror field is a strange phenomenon, in a way, yet it would seem to be a natural match. Vivid imagery and highly specific word choice bringing you detailed glimpses into worlds of darkness you may not wish to linger over unless language itself turns you on (and really, shouldn't it?). Still, it seems as though it has to "work" right out of the box, perhaps a holdover of people's misconception that all poetry must rhyme (as Poe's "The Raven" does, but in that case it's appropriate), or perhaps a misconception based on the light, positive and uplifting greeting-card style verse of popular poets styled on McKuen and the like. Maybe it's just an acquired taste, and let's leave it at that.

Michael A. Arnzen swooped in and won a Stoker Award for his fine first novel Grave Markings years ago, and then mostly dropped out of sight. But not really. His dark and decidedly twisted poetry has appeared for years in various venues such as "Paratabloids" and "Gorelets," as well as many genre magazines. Now a university professor, he continues to warp young campus minds—and that's exactly what the genre needs! Less conformity; more bizarre individuality. That's what universities used to do, before they decided to mind their bottom lines rather than their Ps and Qs. If Arnzen's students truly appreciate his zeal for the strange, his love for the squishy—and indications are they do—then his contribution to the field will be twofold.

Freakcidents is a nightmare walk through the shadowy tents of the carnival freakshow, a behind-the-scenes tour of the abnormal, the odd, and the downright gruesome. And yet, and yet . . . The humor displayed is less the smirking kind than the understanding, almost loving humor of the secret aficionado, perhaps even resident. The sideshow attractions are somehow familiar—they can be our own twisted images, reflected back to us in funhouse mirrors angled to tell more truth than any journalistic media. Take "The Scab," the 10-year-old kid whose skin is a living scabrous and oozing wound—and what 10-year-old's skin, real and metaphorical, isn't? And where do they grow up? The Columbines of the world, waiting for the scabs to harden? Take "Genetic Defect Jennie" and "Test Tube Tommy" and try not to feel sympathy at their tears and shame, though none of their defects are their fault. "The Conjoined Triplets" are a joke on the differing personalities of Siamese twins (or whatever), and "Mutant Marcus" leads to perhaps the best last couplet of the collection. "Born Every Minute" must take place at an Innsmouth carnival, with its "calamari-faced kids," plus it ends with the title's great quip completed.

The only false note belongs to a spelling error, a typo of unfortunate location—at the end of "Smoker," where the line "I cannot breath" jars one right out of the poem's story and squashes the punch-line, as it were (obviously, the criticism is retracted if the error was caught in proofreading). Besides this one gripe, the collection of thirteen reprints and eight originals admirably walks the line between satire and pathos, the two not always immediately separable. Our fascination with nature's oddities blends with our appreciation of and empathy for the monstrous, reminding that any one of us is but a simple genetic manipulation away from being a perfect subject for Arnzen's scalpel-pen.