Witch

by German Alcala

A collection of 41 Halloween Poems which detail a night of All Hallow's Eve. Recounting the anticipation felt by all for Halloween, the unspeakable acts of monsters, and war. In exciting tales of murder and magic. Witch is the poetic story of Halloween.
Includes a tribute to "Come Little Children" named "Sweet Little Children".

Genres: Poetry

43 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 23, 2010

Reviews

[Kitty Igaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five books of poetry in one about All Hallow's Eve. These poems are about a different kind of Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Some cute, all of them dark, the poems begin with everyone, including the creatures that go bump in the night, preparing for Halloween, then Halloween comes, all dark the time when Halloween is truly upon us, then we learn of the creature's life and thoughts, and finish with all the monsters desiring more than one night. Definitely worth a read if you love the dark holiday. Are monsters good? Bad? Simply living different lives from us? Even tooth decay and commercialism are talked about, something for everyone in the family to enjoy. Think Disney's Fantasia, the Night on Bald Mountain bit with Satan waking up with all his minions causing chaos, then everything slowly returns to normal as the sky lightens to morning.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

The haunting poetry of Witch has simply language (though sometimes oddly used) and a nice rhythmic style. The story’s told in series of poems, collected in 5 books, with the innocent glee of children hunting candy constantly contrasted with something more dangerous. Creatures from myth and legend whisper through the poems, Karaken, Scylla, Charybis, Frankenstein’s monster and more. And candied entrails are certainly a disturbing thought as the veil grows thin.

Some odd usage of old English distracted me as I read these poems—“Such foolish monster young, this is not thine year” for example, or an often repeated phrase, “The moon does rises.” But perhaps old American is different from old English.

“Little bodies litter the floor,” in what may be innocent over-eating or something worse as Book 2 ends. “I wonder how the grown mind differs/ from the innocence of youth/ I wonder how their fear shivers/ And I wonder if they know my truth,” asks that which longs to be human in book 3. Then the creature stirs, looking for an education in human behavior, and born of human science. As monsters strive to stay longer in book 5, “the weakest state is the state of the living” and “The monsters… showed quite quickly who was boss.”



Disclosure: I can’t remember how or when I got my copy, but I suspect I may have promised to write a review, in which case I’m really late writing it and I apologise.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems about Halloween.

[Whitsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the poems were very memorable. Great for Halloween.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

okay. nothing to write home about. found a couple lines i liked