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Dead Inside: Poems and Essays About Zombies
As new generations of writers, filmmakers, and artists continue to revisit the notion of the undead and continue to add to the richness of its legacy, we have to ask what fascinates us so much about this particular monster. The authors of the 26 poems and 6 essays in this collection provide robust responses to that question.
This collection speaks to the tension between a fascination with zombies and a repugnance with their fearful decrepitude. Somewhere within that tension is our continual desire to know, to understand, to commiserate with the post-apocalyptic inhabitants of films and television shows, like The Walking Dead, where zombies are the norm.
The literary works in this anthology are rich in messages about our frail humanity, messages that transcend overt metaphor. The result is a lens that focuses on our own self-inflicted hunger for something. For what? For what do we hunger? And will we be satiated before the bite comes from behind?
This collection speaks to the tension between a fascination with zombies and a repugnance with their fearful decrepitude. Somewhere within that tension is our continual desire to know, to understand, to commiserate with the post-apocalyptic inhabitants of films and television shows, like The Walking Dead, where zombies are the norm.
The literary works in this anthology are rich in messages about our frail humanity, messages that transcend overt metaphor. The result is a lens that focuses on our own self-inflicted hunger for something. For what? For what do we hunger? And will we be satiated before the bite comes from behind?
108 pages, Paperback
Published July 7, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 18, 2016
(Caveat: I’m one of the editors and writers, but I’m going for honesty.)
1. I’ll tell you what: that intro says a lot. I love it.
2. This is an awesome book for the college classroom. See the pub’s website for a sample syllabus and in-depth discussion questions. Lynn wrote 99% of them. She should charge profs. Like, seriously. I don’t really get to teach pop culture or lit like this, but it makes me wish I did. Works referenced in the anthology include GILGAMESH, BEOWULF, HAMLET, Schopenhauer, John Gardner’s ON MORAL FICTION, Frank Kermode’s THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, James Joyce, 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, LORD OF THE FLIES, FAHRENHEIT 451, McCarthy’s THE ROAD, THE HUNGER GAMES, Flannery O’Connor, Yeats, a slew of both films and TV shows
3. “Sunday Night” by Steffi Shook: short and power-packed, so I’m not going to quote it—but I think it speaks of our weird, near-cathartic, need for the show.
4. Richard K. Weens, I like your word choice, man. “Don’t we all live under the fantasy that our will alone will offer us reprieve from The End?” (This is from “Real Friends Shoot You in the Head.”)
5. “How to Survive a Human Attack: A Zombie’s Guide to Filling the Emptiness and Moving Forward” by K.E. Flann is profound and clever.
6. Lynn, Susan, and I all wrote stuff!
7. Best contributor’s bio comes from Aurelius Raines II: “Teaching middle school tends to make Aurelius believe that the end is nigh.” I hear you. I did it once. Never again.
8. I think I could remark on each poem and essay. As in the show, it’s evident from the high-caliber work presented here that we’re really not talk about zombies. We’re talking about us.
1. I’ll tell you what: that intro says a lot. I love it.
2. This is an awesome book for the college classroom. See the pub’s website for a sample syllabus and in-depth discussion questions. Lynn wrote 99% of them. She should charge profs. Like, seriously. I don’t really get to teach pop culture or lit like this, but it makes me wish I did. Works referenced in the anthology include GILGAMESH, BEOWULF, HAMLET, Schopenhauer, John Gardner’s ON MORAL FICTION, Frank Kermode’s THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, James Joyce, 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, LORD OF THE FLIES, FAHRENHEIT 451, McCarthy’s THE ROAD, THE HUNGER GAMES, Flannery O’Connor, Yeats, a slew of both films and TV shows
3. “Sunday Night” by Steffi Shook: short and power-packed, so I’m not going to quote it—but I think it speaks of our weird, near-cathartic, need for the show.
4. Richard K. Weens, I like your word choice, man. “Don’t we all live under the fantasy that our will alone will offer us reprieve from The End?” (This is from “Real Friends Shoot You in the Head.”)
5. “How to Survive a Human Attack: A Zombie’s Guide to Filling the Emptiness and Moving Forward” by K.E. Flann is profound and clever.
6. Lynn, Susan, and I all wrote stuff!
7. Best contributor’s bio comes from Aurelius Raines II: “Teaching middle school tends to make Aurelius believe that the end is nigh.” I hear you. I did it once. Never again.
8. I think I could remark on each poem and essay. As in the show, it’s evident from the high-caliber work presented here that we’re really not talk about zombies. We’re talking about us.
September 18, 2016
(Caveat: I’m one of the editors and writers, but I’m going for honesty.)
1. I’ll tell you what: that intro says a lot. I love it.
2. This is an awesome book for the college classroom. See the pub’s website for a sample syllabus and in-depth discussion questions. Lynn wrote 99% of them. She should charge profs. Like, seriously. I don’t really get to teach pop culture or lit like this, but it makes me wish I did. Works referenced in the anthology include GILGAMESH, BEOWULF, HAMLET, Schopenhauer, John Gardner’s ON MORAL FICTION, Frank Kermode’s THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, James Joyce, 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, LORD OF THE FLIES, FAHRENHEIT 451, McCarthy’s THE ROAD, THE HUNGER GAMES, Flannery O’Connor, Yeats, a slew of both films and TV shows
3. “Sunday Night” by Steffi Shook: short and power-packed, so I’m not going to quote it—but I think it speaks of our weird, near-cathartic, need for the show.
4. Richard K. Weens, I like your word choice, man. “Don’t we all live under the fantasy that our will alone will offer us reprieve from The End?” (This is from “Real Friends Shoot You in the Head.”)
5. “How to Survive a Human Attack: A Zombie’s Guide to Filling the Emptiness and Moving Forward” by K.E. Flann is profound and clever.
6. Lynn, Susan, and I all wrote stuff!
7. Best contributor’s bio comes from Aurelius Raines II: “Teaching middle school tends to make Aurelius believe that the end is nigh.” I hear you. I did it once. Never again.
8. I think I could remark on each poem and essay. As in the show, it’s evident from the high-caliber work presented here that we’re really not talking about zombies. We’re talking about us.
1. I’ll tell you what: that intro says a lot. I love it.
2. This is an awesome book for the college classroom. See the pub’s website for a sample syllabus and in-depth discussion questions. Lynn wrote 99% of them. She should charge profs. Like, seriously. I don’t really get to teach pop culture or lit like this, but it makes me wish I did. Works referenced in the anthology include GILGAMESH, BEOWULF, HAMLET, Schopenhauer, John Gardner’s ON MORAL FICTION, Frank Kermode’s THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, James Joyce, 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, LORD OF THE FLIES, FAHRENHEIT 451, McCarthy’s THE ROAD, THE HUNGER GAMES, Flannery O’Connor, Yeats, a slew of both films and TV shows
3. “Sunday Night” by Steffi Shook: short and power-packed, so I’m not going to quote it—but I think it speaks of our weird, near-cathartic, need for the show.
4. Richard K. Weens, I like your word choice, man. “Don’t we all live under the fantasy that our will alone will offer us reprieve from The End?” (This is from “Real Friends Shoot You in the Head.”)
5. “How to Survive a Human Attack: A Zombie’s Guide to Filling the Emptiness and Moving Forward” by K.E. Flann is profound and clever.
6. Lynn, Susan, and I all wrote stuff!
7. Best contributor’s bio comes from Aurelius Raines II: “Teaching middle school tends to make Aurelius believe that the end is nigh.” I hear you. I did it once. Never again.
8. I think I could remark on each poem and essay. As in the show, it’s evident from the high-caliber work presented here that we’re really not talking about zombies. We’re talking about us.
August 17, 2016
I contributed to this anthology because I am no Johnny-come-lately when it comes to zombies. The shambling undead and Godzilla have been obsessions of mine for decades. Zombies held such a fascination for me because they are monsters that holdup the best mirrors to ourselves. After all, zombies once WERE us. As a result, more than any other movie genre, zombies have always been about the human characters, and the poorest flicks always fail to realize that.
So it became quite refreshing to come across an anthology proposal that was zombie-centric, but ultimately about human character. Poem highlights here include Peter E. Murphy, Susan Allspaw Pomeroy's "Zombies Don't Need Chemo," Carrie Shipers, Jennifer Perrine, and a wonderful essay by Aurelius Raines II. As promised in the introduction, the best works delve into the horrific aspects of ourselves and Alina's with the undead, as much as we don't want to.
Though I must admit I couldn't help noticing how much the old meme of zombies eating brains languishes here, despite its rarity in the actual zombie milieu, including The Walking Dead, which gets heavily referenced here. Though The Return of the Living Dead IS one of my all time favs, it is one of the few to fixate on brain-eating. Yet the correlation continues. Possibly the subject for an essay on its own.
So it became quite refreshing to come across an anthology proposal that was zombie-centric, but ultimately about human character. Poem highlights here include Peter E. Murphy, Susan Allspaw Pomeroy's "Zombies Don't Need Chemo," Carrie Shipers, Jennifer Perrine, and a wonderful essay by Aurelius Raines II. As promised in the introduction, the best works delve into the horrific aspects of ourselves and Alina's with the undead, as much as we don't want to.
Though I must admit I couldn't help noticing how much the old meme of zombies eating brains languishes here, despite its rarity in the actual zombie milieu, including The Walking Dead, which gets heavily referenced here. Though The Return of the Living Dead IS one of my all time favs, it is one of the few to fixate on brain-eating. Yet the correlation continues. Possibly the subject for an essay on its own.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews