Poems Bewitched And Haunted

by John Hollander (Editor)

In time for this year's Halloween revels comes a horrible array of spectres and sorcerers, ghosts and demons, hags and apparitions. From Homer and Horace via Pope and Poe to Graves and Hardy, Poems Bewitched and Haunted draws on three thousand years of poetic forays into the supernatural. Ovid conjures the witch Medea, Virgil summons Aeneas's wife from the afterlife, Baudelaire lays bare the wiles of the incubus, and Emily Dickinson records two souls conversing in a crypt in poems that call out to be read aloud, whether around the campfire or the Ouija board. Ballads, odes, spells, chants, dialogues, incantations - here is a veritable witch's brew of poems from the spirit world.

More than 670,000 copies sold worldwide of our 25 Pocket Poet anthologies.

Genres: Poetry, Halloween, Horror, Gothic, Classics, Fiction, Paranormal

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection. The poems definitely gave me eerie and spooky vibes. I loved how there were sections of poems about witches, ghosts, spells, dangerous lovers and other apparitions. A great variety. There were many poems I really enjoyed, particularly those by Madison Cawein and "Spectral Lovers" by John Crowe Ransom. This is my favorite Everyman's Library Pocket Poets collection so far!

[Maritina Mela · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5/5

I feel bad for giving this a low rating, because some poems were actually decent and some might have been enjoyable, had they not been written in a hard to understand way.
But, here we are...
Unfortunately, I kinda feel like I got nothing from reading this...

[Lizzie S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really fun collection of poetry for this time of year! A great autumn read.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting selection of poems relating to bewitched and haunted ie witches

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this collection of poems with the central theme of being about things bewitched and haunted. There were touching poems about loss, the ghosts of war, and more lighthearted poems and rhyming metered ghostly fun.

Poems have a way of making you feel things and really ponder about those feelings -- sometimes even more than reading prose. That was true for me of this collection. One of the most haunting poems was The Haunted Oak by Paul Laurence Dunbar about the spirit of a tree that was used to hang a man unjustly. It was just really illuminating to think about how a tree would be impacted by such a deep wrong.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect poems for Halloween.

[Patrick Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic. Hollander did a great job selecting the poems. Great Halloween read.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this little collection of spooky poetry! I bought it to read as a build up to Halloween, and it's been so fun to break it out in the evening + read a poem or two before bed. I already bought one of the other spooky collections by this same publisher, Poems Dead and Undead, and it looks like it'll be an equally fun read~

[Black Tea Lady ☕️📚 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hermosura de librito! Una colección de poemas sobre casas embrujadas, espantos, fantasmas, brujas y uno que otro diablito. Mi favorito fue Incubus de Charles Baudelaire y 3 Brujas Cocinando de William Shakespeare. Perfecto para entrar en modo Halloween.

[John Geddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was actually sort of a fun read, but the dominance of old English and translated works probably means I won't be returning to read it again.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good poetry collection with a nice variety of styles and authors.

[Ags · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oldies, but goodies. Lots of witches, ghosts, and other crossings of the supernatural plane. The last section, "On the Lighter Side," had charming (and still emotional!) humorous verse, which was a really endearing way to send off the collection. Overall, I really enjoyed this!!

What is a ghost? Who are the witches? How do people think of these things, and why does it matter? Loved the kinds of content here. I'm inspired to read more "horror poetry" and slowly going through this collection, I think, has made older verse more accessible to me.

Very English + lots of white male poets, which is a downside (a loss especially felt in the early sections, in which poems captured the use of "witches" to condem women and outsiders).

[Callum Morris-Horne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only just finished this; my Halloween read of the year. Anthologies are often a mixed bag, and this has some duds to be sure, but overall I found it to offer a fittingly bewitching range of paranormal poetry which was diverting enough to pull out from the pocket of my winter coat during train journeys.

[Marice · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Pernille · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nogle digte var fantastiske, men desværre var de fleste ret meh...

[Leonie]

There should’ve been poems by Edgar Allan Poe in my opinion.

[Arianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cap de la Emily Brönte i només dos de Dickinson. Però sis del coi de Yeats.

[KD · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great, very atmospheric! But make sure you have the patience and the ability to read old poetry. Everything in here is pre-1800…..

Not what I expected, but I really enjoyed it!

[Laura Jayne Tricker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfect Halloween Read

[Madame Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

When, like a lunatic, all bare
The moon lets awn its mystic hair
Of cold, enraging light,
You wrap your features in the hide
Of animals, and smoothly glide
Abroad into the night
~ Pierre de Ronsard "Invective Against Denise, A Witch"

Bought at the Salem Witch Museum in Salem, MA

[Olivia Thames · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who knows me, knows I would gladly live in a land where it is fall all year round! When I cam across John Hollander's anthology of fall and macabre themed poetry, it was a no brainer that I would pregame the coming season by indulging in its pages.

While reading the collection I made note of the poems that stuck out to me (for various reasons), and out of the sum total, 29 stood out. I will list them at the end of this review, for future use and for other's interests.

But one line, in the entire book, stood out to me the most. In "Walpurgis-Night", by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (and translated by Percy Bysshe Shelly) the poet stats "A thousand steps must a woman take, where a man but a single spring will make." (185). I felt that this summarizes the experiences of life women have dealt with for centuries, and the poet summarized it well with magic and power.

An anthology that will take time to digest, but worth the experience, I would recommend all my autumn lovers to read it any time of year!

Poems:
"The Witch" by Charles G. Leland
"The Town Witch" and "The Wood Witch" both by Madison Cawein
"The Witch" by Adelaide Crapsey
"Three Witches Cook Something Up" by William Shakespeare
"The Haunted Palace" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Haunted House" by Thomas Hood
"The Haunted House" by Alice Cary
"The Haunted Oak" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
"The Incubus" by Charles Baudelaire
"The Double" by Heinrich Heine
"The Spectre Boat: A Ballad" by Thomas Campbell
"Phantoms" by John Bannister Tabb
"Windy Nights" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Grey Mare" by Giovanni Pascoli
"The Apparitions" by William Butler Yeats
"The Ballad of the White Glow" by Itzik Manger
"Margaret's Ghost" by David Mallet
"The Ghost of a Rose" by Theophile Gautier
"The Ghosts" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"The Ghosts Converse" by Emily Dickinson
"The Ghost's Petition" by Christina Rossetti
"The Banshee" by Dora Sigerson
"The Ghost" by Edith Nesbit
"Ghosts in Love" by Vachel Lindsay
"Spectral Lovers" by John Crowe Ransom
"Mary's Ghost: A Pathetic Ballad" by Thomas Hood
"Ballade of a Choice of Ghosts" by Andrew Lang
"A Bed Time Story" by Mona Van Duyn

[Claudia DCD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some truly set the mood, some are not even about the holiday but just spooky and others seem off the mark. But it's worth it for the gems. Reading level is high and challenging, and I'm the one who enjoyed Homer and mucked through most of the Aenied in college. I read Edgar Allen Poe for fun. Think academic and old-school. Most of these poems needed two reads to just get a base comprehension. You should read each twice or even thrice, in order to first get the words and movement of the scene, then to visualize it all, then to set yourself in the space with all your senses alive in order to really spook yourself out. I can forgive the many poems that missed for the poems that got me ready for Halloween and ensconced in the mood.

[Logan Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty nice Halloween collection. There were definitely some duds, but some were really fun reads!

[Lisa Lou]

Not my cup of tea. A few poems I liked but otherwise I liked it for the cover.

[alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

certainly very spooky and cozy!! some poems i enjoyed more than others— i appreciated the emily dickinsons especially

[Barrita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gustó muchísimo la idea de poesía monotemática y de verdad quiero conseguir más de esta colección porque además físicamente están rebonitos. Necesito conseguir Poems Dead and Undead, Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem y Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman.

Este ejemplar abarca varios temas, incluyendo "brujas" apariciones, rituales y en general temas de la temporada. Un tema frecuente es la maldad, la sensación creepy de la misma con muchas menciones a la naturaleza y contiene más elementos de horror folk que muerte, destrucción y monstruos.

Algunos poemas son un pelín repetitivos y bastante más rimbombantes de lo que esperaba pero también hay perspectivas interesantes, como incluir a Circe en la sección de brujas.

La selección de autores es diversa e incluye nombres como Keats, Goethe, Poe, Shelley, Rosetti, Shakespeare, Dickinson y hasta Edith Nesbit anda por ahí. Los estilos de todos son variados, la mayoría de temas sombríos pero no propiamente de miedo.

[Jonathon Fast · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a very casual enjoyer of poetry, in the sense that I know nothing about poetry, but every now and then I'll read a poem that hits just right and sparks a real emotional response, or even just simple amusement. I wanted to read macabre poetry around Halloween, and thus landed on this collection.

This is a fun collection, however I found most of the poems to be duds. Many of the poems are "spooky" sections of larger poetic epics, which I didn't think worked well in this collection. I still think this is worth reading, as when you don't find a poem enjoyable you can simply move onto the next poem, and linger on the ones you truly enjoy. As I was reading, I wrote down every poem that hit for me.

"The Witch Mother" by Algernon Charles Swinburne
"The Amber Witch" by William Von Moody
"The Town Witch and the Wood Witch" by Madison Cawein
"The Patient Witch" by Vachel Lindsay
"The Two Witches" by Robert Graves
"The Haunted House" by Thomas Hood
"The Fearful Traveller in the Haunted Castle" by George Moses Horton
"The Haunted Chamber by Henry Wadsworth" Longfellow
"The Haunted House" by Alice Carry
"The Haunted Oak" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats
"The Double" by Heinrich Heine
"The Spectre Boat. A Ballad" by Thomas Campbell
"The Demons" by Alexander Pushkin
"At The Piano" by Thomas Hardy
"Janet Curses Ronald, Her Betrayer" by Matthew G Lewis
"Mary's Ghost: A Pathetic Ballad" by Thomas Hood
"A Dreadful Legend" by W.S. Gilbert

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is just the cutest little thing to have lying about over the month of Halloween with its pumpkins and orange design. So cute. It might have been a cover buy which I never do, and technically my husband bought this during a Halloween trip to New Orleans, so I am still good on my claim to not do cover buys.

It took me two whole Octobers and a few extra days to finish it, it is more of a dip-in/ dip-out type of collection of classic poetry with spooky themes. Old fashioned poetry is not a huge hit with me which very likely was a contributing factor to my slow reading. But I found some gems in here, I also only half read a bunch of the more long-winded pieces. For me, a true mixed bag, for others who are more inclined to enjoy language filled with "Yonder" and "Hark" it could be even more of a win. You can find well known name such as Shakespeare and Goethe, Hebbel, Keats, Frost, Dickinson, Beaudelaire, Heine, Poe, Homer and Percy Shelley, to name a few.

Here, in no particular order, are the ones that stood out to me:
- "The Town Witch" by Madison Cawein
- "Witch!" by Leonora Speyer
- "The Erl-King" by Johannn Wolfgang Goethe (which I like better in its original German)
- "The Phantom-Wooer" + "The Old Ghost" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
- "The Demons" by Alexander Pushkin
- "Margaret's Ghost" by David Mallet
- "The Ghosts" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- "Two Ghosts Converse" by Emily Dickinson

[George Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little read for the autumn season. Honestly, I didn’t love this as much as I thought, but mostly because most of the poems in here are of the classical variety, and I prefer more modern stuff. I’m sure there are some poets who were active in the 20th century and beyond who have written poems that could add to this collection, but as it gets a little tiring reading poems in the old-English style of the 17 and 1800s without anything more current to break them up. Still, I’d feel bad giving this any less than 3 stars, because there are some really good poems in this collection by some really famous authors. Perhaps not a collection I’d recommend to anyone looking to start reading poetry for the first time, but if an older style of writing is more your cup of tea then this is a fantastic collection to read to get you in the October mood!

[Kem White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cute anthology of poems. The focus is on the supernatural: ghosts, apparitions, and other spooky themes. I always like these Everyman's Library volumes. Unlike others in the series I've read, this collection was mostly poems written before the 20th century and, in many cases, well before. I guess poets stopped being inspired by ghosts and hauntings in recent years. I especially liked "Invective Against Denise, a Witch," with its great imagery and imagination. Thomas Hood's "The Haunted House" was also quite excellent. Though gloomy it made good use of birds and nature. Alexander Pushkin's "The Demons" was also excellent. It was very spooky and you can feel the terror. There were a few clinkers: Shelley's "A Lovely Witches Cave" and Pope's "The Ghosts of Beauty" stand out on the negative side mostly for the flowery, hard-to-understand language. Recommended for fans of poetry and the supernatural.