New Prose & Poetry

Pamela Bruns offers a new fairy tale, The Three Youths. In this piece, she successfully weaves theological parable into a childlike tale of wonder.

Timing by Joshua Alan Sturgill

The Weekly Machen

Today, we begin a new series focused on the journalism of Arthur Machen. Far from being banal hackwork, Machen’s large body of articles reflects his desire to seek the ecstatic and wonderful in all things. A new article will posted every Thursday. In addition, Machen Studies will become a space for longer meditations on the writer’s work, with postings on an irregular basis.

The 2021 Inklings Festival is continuing to garner interest. Two brief write-ups appeared in the latest issue of Machenalia, a newsletter of the Friends of Arthur Machen. An item also appeared on scholar Douglas A. Anderson’s site Tolkien and Fantasy.

Vanishing Limited Editions

Levavi Oculos by Arthur Machen: 1 copy remaining

One Is Found First (Hardcover, Limited & Signed) by Gaelan Gilbert: 5 copies remaining

A Secret Language by Arthur Machen: 9 copies remaining

This week, we celebrate the Feast of St. Ilar, the enigmatic and unknown saint who celebrated the Mass to the men and animals of Wales in Arthur Machen’s Levavi Oculos. Only three copies remain of the limited edition chapbook of this mystical tale.

New poetry from Joshua Alan Sturgill: The Old Learning & I Am Like The Birds.

Sex & Lies:
Delusions of the Self in the 21^st Century
January 13-15, 2022 in Wichita, Kansas

Consider attending for Great Speakers and Events. More Information.

NEW POETRY

Joshua Alan Sturgill: Scientia Nostra

Linda Lobmeyer: What the Neighbors See

NEW POETRY

Joshua Alan Sturgill completes Heir of Prophecies: Parts IX & X
Tălmaciu by Pamela Bruns
Whale Wail by Benjamin Rozonoyer

A Sheaf of Yule Log Stories

In North America, we are accustomed to think about ghostly and creepy tales during autumn, most especially at the end of October. However, in Merrie o’ England, the tradition for telling such stories occurs in winter, and somewhat counterintuitively, during Christmastime. The low winter sun and long cold evenings were quite conducive to the sharing of chillers and spine-tinglers with the most famous and obvious example of this long-standing tradition being typified in A Christmas Carol by Dickens. Another fine historical instance was the yearly reading of a new ghost story by M. R. James. In grand fashion, the master held a select audience spellbound every Christmas Eve with many of the recited tales finding publication after their yuletide debut. This phenomenon was finely defended by the words of our guide for this Christmas season: “These particular stories lie on the border land between the seen and unseen; they may be very incredible; but they will serve to pass away the happy time around the Yule Log, when mythic stories are most acceptable.”    

The Reverend Augustine David Crake (1836-1890) belongs to a long list of English priests who contributed to ghost story literature, including Sabine Baring-Gould, whom he name-drops, and E. G. Swain. Mostly, Crake wrote historical religious fiction and devotional books, but we will be exploring his singular contribution to the fantastic, A Sheaf of Yule Log Stories (1888). The book is a collection of stories Crake heard around the fireplace as a child in the 1840s and is divided into the seven nights of Christmas week. Below is the first story.

Crake’s Introduction to the volume is not to be passed over. It is a delightful recounting of Crake’s childhood holidays full of snow-laden hills, iceskating atop deep lakes and the nightly sharing of cheer and spine-tingling thrills. Seemingly, it is a time and experience now vanished. In an era of drone-delivered consumer products, major holiday discounts and a multiplicity of screens, we don’t seem to talk to each other; we don’t share stories any longer. Say what you will about “progress,” but I feel a loss.

Introduction & Night the First

This week, Joshua Alan Sturgill crossed the threshold of 200 contributions to the Darkly Bright website. Since 2018, Sturgill has provided us with an astounding body of work including poetry, essays and fairy tales. A very short list of recommended highlights:

Ambrose and the River Troll

Literacy as Medicine for Obsessive Thoughts

Feast of Books

Celestial Cartography

NEW POETRY

The Violent by Linda Lobmeyer

Joshua Alan Sturgill: Heir of Prophecies, Part VI, VII & VIII

MACHEN STUDIES

Closing out a successful year for Machen study and appreciation, we present the fifth and penultimate chapter from Far Off Things, that enigmatic volume of memoirs by the Apostle of Wonder.

This week, we present a classic poem from a Russian master in a new translation by Benjamin Rozonoyer: The Fugitive by Mikhail Lermontov.

NEW POETRY (from our Modern Masters)

Joshua Alan Sturgill continues with Heir of Prophecies, Part III / IV / V

How Words Work by Father Gabriel Rochelle

Hieroglyphs by Claire Brandenburg

Throughout the month, we will be showcasing new work from several Darkly Bright poets. This week, we introduce a new writer: Pamela Bruns – Harmony.

Linda Lobmeyer ushers us into the festive season with Advent: The Gift.

Joshua Alan Sturgill begins a new 10-Part poem – Heir of Prophecies. Read Part I & II.

Other recent work from Sturgill: The Noise from the Party / I Watched With Them / How You’ll Know.

Darkly Bright Press presents a selection from Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditations, a work that C. S. Lewis described as “…almost the most beautiful book in English.”

“Love is so amiable that it is irresistible. There is no defence against that arrow, nor any deliverance in that war, nor any safeguard from that charm…   READ MORE.

NEW POETRY

Periodical & Correction by Joshua Alan Sturgill

This week, we present a keynote lecture from the 2021 Inklings Festival… Dreamt in Fire: The Dreadful Ecstasy of Arthur Machen by Christopher Tompkins.

“This is the ecstatic alchemy of Arthur Machen, his mythopoeic vision: a perichoretic landscape built by hieroglyph upon hieroglyph, a world of symbols beneath clouds of images which seek to speak not to the intellect only, but to the nous, or the heart of the reader…   READ MORE.

Additionally, the Eighth Day Institute has posted Machen’s Let Us Keep the Tavern, one of the selections that can be found in the Dreamt in Fire collection.

NEW POETRY

After All, Heaven & Etc., Missing You by Joshua Alan Sturgill

Aer of Life by Mark Mosley

This week, we present Sacraments & Ghosts, a lecture given by Christopher Tompkins at the 7^th Annual Inklings Festival on October 23, 2021.

“Horror begins where the believer begins: we are transcendent. For a story to qualify as a work of horror, it must force an ontological crisis, that is, a crisis of being, for the characters, and to a lesser extent, for the reader…    READ MORE.

NEW POETRY

The Old Answers and Anyone Could Find It by Joshua Alan Sturgill