HSTQ: Winter 2017

Sisters of Sin

by Arthur Graham, Mather Schneider, Johnny Scarlotti

Prophesied to be the catalyst in a modern-day Armageddon, Kelsey Waite flees a life in Utah, freeing herself from a polygamous lifestyle and abusive father. Ten years later, her new life in California leaves her with an illusion of safety, one that rapidly unravels when she returns home from work to find her neighbor murdered and her daughter missing.

Realizing the two are linked, she is forced to return to Utah and face her demons--and the charismatic cult leader who believes she is destined to be his second wife.

Will her sheer strength of will and determination be enough to save both herself, and her daughter, from the cult?

Genres: Poetry

294 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 4, 2010

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

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plenty of entertaining sleaze and trash, but I couldn't find the horror. Maybe it was in Arthur's laundry.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every Seven Seconds Men Think About Sex *

8==D~{(.)}8==D~{(.)}8==D~{(.)}8==D~{(.)}

- From Traveling the Range of a Male Thought
by Bob McNeil

Look forward to Saturday SEX
Sleep in front of the premium cable SEX
Start chores for another week of SEX
Have a realization about SEX
7 seconds later, have another thought about SEX
And how it relates to SEX
Tell my lady that I have other thoughts
Besides SEX

8==D~{(.)}8==D~{(.)}8==D~{(.)}8==D~{(.)}

SEX, SEX, SEX . . .

That's all these poems ever think about. They're pretty dang good, though.

So swallow (or spit), your pride, and go ask this guy - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
to send you a free ecopy.


Because . . . SEX.




*This is actually not true. Here's the article, though be warned - nobody can make SEX as boring as Kinsey - https://www.snopes.com/science/stats/...

[Arthur Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Twas my distinct privilege to compile this for Horror, Sleaze and Trash. Would've given it full marks were it not for the inclusion of two really bad poems by Arthur Graham. I guess when you're the editor, you can get away with that kind of shit.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I interviewed Arthur about this book and more, and you can listen here!

I got off to every poem. In fact, I now identify as a poem. You may refer to me with poem/poems/poemself pronouns. Poems poem—by which I mean, poems poem, like, the poem poemself wrote, was one of my favourites. (You tell me I'm using my own pronouns improperly I swear ta f I'll—)
Poem popoempoemp poem pome poem pome it's such a stupid word, right? Exactly.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic collection of rude and disgusting poetry that is ideally read out loud in an old folks home. The usual culprits have added 1 or 2 poems to the collection. Mr A. Graham, bless him, starts off trying to knock some sense into those who do not love Trump. There is something about Johnny Scarlotti's poetry that brings the child out in me, he is no ruder than anybody else but for some reason I snigger more with his than any of the others.

New in this collection is something from Leo X. Robertson who gives the best lines, I'm not gonna post them here so go check them out for yourselves.

Favourite new (to me) poet here was Audrey El-Osta, her poem Gaze was my favourite.

This only gets 4 stars from me as I felt the "Horror" part of HST was missing. Still, I loved this and cannae wait until Spring.

[Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sleazier and trashier than the last one! I look forward to reading this every quarter. My favorites this time around:
Thoughts​ ​for​ ​Today​ ​by​ ​Arthur​ ​Graham (yeah, I know, this is technically the intro, not a poem)
#YesAllPoems​ ​by​ ​Leo​ ​X.​ ​Robertson
Keen​ ​by​ ​Christopher​ ​P.P.​ ​White
Saying​ ​Goodbye​ ​to​ ​Your​ ​Lover​ ​by​ ​Kerney​ ​Bee

[Harry Whitewolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like reading lots of different forms of poetry, and am always open to trying new poets, so I'm enjoying these HST Quartlerlys, even though horror, sleaze and trash aren't typically the sorts of subjects I'd read. For an anthology, these poems work very well together to make a rather satisfying whole, which most definitely delivers what you would expect from HST: horrors such as Bren Newell's 'you could be ted bundy', and sleaze and trash like Karina Bush's 'Unchristian'.

Many of these poems really stood out, even if I wasn't always too taken with the subject matters. Johnny Scarlotti's poems for instance: even when I'm not mad about his themes, he's still most definitely doing his own thing and I admire his writing very much. Although if I'm totally honest (and I don't mean to pick on any particular poets here),

i am
a little
tired of reading
the modern form
of poetry
that goes
like
this

Which is why my favourite poem of this issue was Bob McNeil's 'Traveling the Range of a Male Thought', which begins:

“Brush my teeth with fluoride SEX
Gulp a cup of espresso SEX
Have a whole bowl of flaky SEX
Commute on the SEX bus
Wait through traffic jam SEX
Watch SEX walk down the street
Read The Daily SEX newspaper
Message passages about SEX
Enter the center of my SEX job
Go to my SEX desk
Turn on my SEX computer...”

That's the originality that I like in poetry right there.

[G. Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scandalous headline: It's 2016 and People Still Write Poetry.

But this is obviously fake news, like any article that makes Hillary Clinton appear to be anything less than a blessed angel sent to Earth to save the common man from their own paychecks.

But here's the real headline: It's 2016 and WE STILL NEED POETRY.

Let that sink in for a minute. Poets have been trying to cure society for a long, long-ass time. But you won't take the time to pick up even a small chapbook and give it a chance. Jet fuel can't melt ignorance, but ART can, my friend.

Just goddamn read this already. I promise it's not all about flowers and crying to Smiths albums.

[Igrowastreesgrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection. Entertaining until the last piece. I'm really glad that I was lucky enough to read this. I honestly can't wait for the next set to come out. I hope others enjoy it as much as I did.

[Rebecca Gransden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was just scrolling through emails and one informed me that I have spent 336 hours playing Fallout 4. What I’m saying is time is a trickster and although this is no great revelation when it looks straight at you you better meet its gaze. I’ve just spent some time with this and my only complaint is that it needs more Oscar the Grouch. Apart from that the leakage of various kinds shakes up a frothy cocktail of wrong. Another collection stripping the world of its airs and hammering home its absurdity. Funny, cheap, and scarred.

[India · Rating 4 out of 5]

This issue of the quarterly had more poems that made me laugh and god do I love a good laugh.

[Jack Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filth.

[A. Blumer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn, this quarterly filled me with some pleasantly vile feelings. It was fucked up and funny, with poems ranging from ridiculous to painfully real. I can honestly say I enjoyed every piece and read some of them several times... winter quarterly, definite win!

[Brian Rosenberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly Winter 2017
www.horrorsleazetrash.com

Great B/W photo cover. Tastefull even. Or is that tasty?

Arthur Graham offers some great points in his 10 Things to do Besides Worrying Who's President column. My favorites were:
• Get Offline
• Go Outside
• Have a Wank
• Find a Skank
• Get Drunk and Sit on the Face of the Person You Love
• Enjoy Some Fucking Poetry Instead

All sound suggestions by themselves or in combinations.

My favorite poems were written by:

Mather Schneider - Interview with a Poet
Arthur Graham - piss on it
Bren Newell - you could be ted bundy
Ryan Quinn Flanagan - Valentine
Ben John Smith - the poem man
J.J. Campbell - the skeletons falling

That’s some strong verse. 80 proof. Solid stuff by all the contributors. HST - always worth checking out.

[Paige Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the furthest-back issues I can find & starts w/ a refreshing editor's note by Arthur Graham to STFU fetishizing your Twitter worries and seek solace in real life poetry instead. The first poem is called "Interview with a Poet" by Mather Schneider. It's a hilarious, quote-riddled piece about softboi know-it-all poets who live every cliche to fit an ironically safe indie bad boy aesthetic. The next piece enters the debate on whether squirt is p!ss (of course it has that in it). There's a bit of a sequel w/ a gay after-morning. The next author has even more fun with subverting the sleaze, making a joke about all the wasted time and anger of us all but feminazi is just a new flavor and poetry is often dishonest.

The editor has a few meta shorts in here about irony found in laundromats and charred paper. "Victimless Slime" by Ezhno Martin is everything I wanted this magazine to be: erotica made odder, to have god complexes and interesting concepts that are sort-of fetishes, a clash of silly PornHub comments and strangely melodic curses. The next poem has a good pop w/ "And they're right. I could be Ted Bundy, perhaps I'm a late bloomer." There's great zigzag formatting in The Range of Male Thought. Even the poems I don't like often redeem themselves w/ a joke. Mr. Androgenous is a riot about wanting to turn into a "transgender blender" to "shove long, thin fruit up their pu$$y."

Red Blood by Karina Bush is the shortest poem but maybe the most interesting w/ the final line: "I want to Give him back my obsession / Turn him into my rapist." I say this until I get to Keen by Christopher P.P. White w/ a poem about relationship monotony even amid a toothbrush fondling and puppy dogs and porn-worthy imagery.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's some good stuff in this one. Always does me good to see the kind of realness that people so often forget can be in poetry. Beautiful things aren't always pretty and plenty of life is that way too. Good to remember.

[Ju$tin · Rating 4 out of 5]

hell ya brotha

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life isn't pretty, but it sure is grand. I think that is the gist of what I read in this Winter Collection of 2017. There is the ugly, the venal, the puffed up, the poetic urges, the body urges, and somehow the beauty of life shines through.

[Casey Kiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly. Lives up to its name and delivers palate cleansing(?) poetry to get one through dreary nights.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

SISTER WIFE is a worthy successor to Ms. Collins' first mystery on the
fringes of Mormonism, WIVES AND SISTERS. I actually did read it in one
sitting -- on Kindle for PC in front of my desktop computer. The story
is that compelling.

It begins with a kidnapping, continues with the discovery of a murder,
and then, as protagonist Kelsey Waite begins the agonizing search for
her missing daughter, we learn bit by bit of her shocking past and her
fear that it has caught up with her. Kelsey is, in some ways, an
average young single mother; she doesn't practice martial arts or have
exceptional strength. What she does have are a strong, willful
personality and a tigress's instinct to protect her daughter. She also
has a firm ally in handsome police officer Quinn Anderson.

Kelsey's search will take her back to a place she never wanted to see
again -- to the shadow world of polygamous cults, offshoots of the
Mormon religion, repudiated by the LDS church. (We have learned in
recent years that Collins' books, which may have seemed far-fetched
when first published, are all too sadly true-to-life.) Her journey
will also take her somewhere she had wished to be but never expected
to reach, as her relationship with Quinn Anderson deepens.

Ms. Collins knows her setting and characters intimately and even
relatively minor characters come to life on the page. It's hard to
read about bad things happening to children, but Ms. Collins always
keeps the emphasis on the inner strength of the victims rather than
dwelling on the twisted thoughts of the perpetrator as too many
authors seem to do. For thrills, romance, and social relevance, I
would strongly recommend this book.

[Philip Nork · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the moment I finished the prologue I was hooked. The story of Kelsey and the Mormon way of life kept me interested page after page. Thw way the author uses fiction as a device to teach about real things impressed me. The back stories and the way she shifted from character to character, all without missing a beat, was fantastic. I recommend this to anyone, the story has something for everyone, no matter what genre you like. I find myself a fan of Natalie and will read anything she writes.

[Cynthia (Bingeing On Books) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to force myself to finish this book. The dialogue was terrible, there was no character development and there were too many holes in the plot. At one point, the main character said she felt like she was in a bad movie of the week. Well that is exactly how this book read. The more I read it, the more I was convinced it was going to be a Lifetime movie soon. Ugh. Hated it!

[D.]

Sisterwife by Natalie R. Collins (2001)

[Michele Nell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I became very hesitant to read this book - the language is more than what I am used to and I really don't think it is necessary. I found the story line to intriguing I have continued to read.

[Jenniferk · Rating 1 out of 5]

terrible. had to force myself to finish it.