HSTQ: Fall 2023

by Arthur Graham (Editor), M.P. Powers, Willie Smith

horror, adj. inspiring or creating loathing, aversion, etc.

sleaze, adj. contemptibly low, mean, or disreputable

trash, n. literary or artistic material of poor or inferior quality

Welcome to HST Quarterly, the curated collection from Horror, Sleaze and Trash.

Genres: Poetry

28 pages, ebook

First published November 18, 2023

About the author

Arthur Graham writes and edits for a living. Cofounder and former head editor of Rooster Republic Press. Current Editor in Chief of Horror Sleaze Trash.

Reviews

[Casey Kiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahhh, someday, Scarlotti... we shall be sitting on a curb together, discovering the rot of the Universe with rolly bugs between our teeth, the horrors of chronic boredom and stale suburbia, scaring children just by our existence. Maybe we'll even go to McD's. You're paying. So, save up. If you're good, we can troll the Save-a-lot parking lot. Johnny Scarlotti brings the cringe once again to make sure we are not sitting up too straight with our desk jobs stuck up our asses. I love you Johnny. I promise to daydream about breaking you out when they finally lock you up ;p

This issue really takes off. my panties and spins them round-round baby. Can we just talk about M.P. Powers, Paige Johnson and Ryan Quinn Flanagan???! What the actual rolly bug grind. Def my very faves this time around. I raise my bloody mary spiked with *Party Pickle* and McChicken bits in your honor. Other faves are 'Drugs And The woman' by Andy Seven and 'The President's Daily Briefs' by John Alejandro King, but I very much enjoyed ALL the poems here, a fun bag of mixed nuts. Speaking of fun bags, Arthur, Happy New Year! And all the contributors of HST. Cheers!
*** 'Party Pickle' *** another recent enjoyable read by Paige Johnson on hst dot com

Loved this by Dan Cuddy
"How tricked we are looking for our own images in mirrors
We have become vampires and screech like Covid bats
Our eyes are cold with either fear or indifference"
-from 'Even the moon is hiding tonight'

Check out this issue or be square. Life is all about choices.

[Arthur Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get it in print for five bucks a copy! Otherwise, FREE ebook here.

[Paige Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy to have a piece in here (A Secret After Party) about wanting post-political prose, or at least have fun w/ it. Especially alongside cute pieces like Judge Santiago’s favorite things poem list, like the Christmas song—but with hookers. Though IDK who Francis Bacon is or the inspo for the poem, it makes me laugh to read the one about Hitler asking to paint him. Know Your Season by MP Powers is a beautiful ode to a curvy beach babe. He also writes a piece about death that could be said by an old scholar or wizard, it’s that dressed up by comparison.

J.J. Campbell is always lurking around and should use words like Rolodex more. It’s funner to imagine the President’s Daily Briefs but actually being skimpier underwear than boxers. The last few lines of Gibbous Fall are best about air shampooing the grass in the moon night. Good alliteration in the story about a mom using Amber Heard as a verb to potty train her kid. Bedfellows is all about the things you can say in normal conversations that are dirty in bed.

Purple Tea is a nice image and there’s the cool concept of tinkering w/ peoples’ obituaries in the next poem. The Spit That Fell From Clouds is a great title for how the world shrinks and shrivels when your wife is dying, leaving no time to care about spoken word drama or world dilemmas seas away. Drugs and The Woman definitely has all the elements I look for in a story.

I’m always chuffed to see Casey Renee Kiser’s work. I can definitely hear some riot grrl growlings here. Eggs by Carrie Randa reminds me of the rock band Kopek if they had a female lead cawing about fertility, they had a cover of dueling chickens after all. Even the Moon is Dancing feels like something written after a few somber Marilyn Manson albums. How could we not close out with that age-old sentiment, Damn, I Wish I Had a McChicken. Fun stuff.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first standout poem in this collection was "The President’s Daily Briefs" by John Alejandro King, I got a good chuckle from the reoccurring use of the title and the last verse finished it off nicely.

No collection is complete without a twisted entry by the Grate Johnny Scarlotti, the question "dam i wish i had a mcchicken…" leaves us is who is this guy? The Poet? Jesus Christ? or Suburban Bear Grills?

One of my favourite writers has a piece in this, Andy Seven gives us "Drugs And The Woman" nice out of control scene from one of the best.

The highlight in the collection goes to J.J. Campbell with "nothing but pain" super blunt and to the point with a roar of a challenge at the conclusion.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whitman made the language of poetry a bit more demotic and human. Bukowski pushed it a little further in that direction. What comes after that? A return to formalism? More tight and experimentally punctuated poems, like those that came from e.e. Cummings? The form seems to be in a holding pattern, but even so, good and even stellar examples of both the free and metered, scatological and scansion-bound, can still be found. It gives us all something to do, to write and to read, until the next breakthrough happens. If indeed it ever does.
Everyone will have their own favorites in this collection—due to the thematic and stylistic range—except for those who don’t care for poetry at all. John Alejandro King’s The President’s Daily Briefs is playful enough to have been written by Nash or Silverstein. There’s even a touch of Thurber in there, with more human absurdity than political satire. Also good is ASAP by Paige Johnson, about reaching fatigue with campus life and politics, and the constraints of ideology and assumed identities. Queen Hardon / Fright Night by Casey Renee Kiser mines that liminal space between the sexual and the violent—especially in the male language (beat it up, spank it, etc.) to create a disturbingly effective and strangely erotic short-lived fugue.
My personal favorite was Eggs by Carrie Magness Radna, which deals with fertility and its inevitable senescence. Men tend not to think about what it’s like to have such mercilessly fixed biological clocks (we remain able to procreate literally to our last breath, and even a little after that sometimes.) But because it’s the kind of thing we tend not to think about—probably because we fear this realm that’s exclusively female—it’s the perfect subject for a poem. If done right, that is. This one was.
Recommended.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this volume I'm rubbing elbows with my prose punk pals Kiser and Scarlotti, keeping bad company as always. The rest, meh, box cars from a speeding freight train were easier to remember. Sorry.