Dark Duet

by Linda D. Addison, Stephen M. Wilson

You’ve heard their voices before, but never like from three-time HWA Bram Stoker Award winner Linda D. Addison and multiple Rhysling Award nominee Stephen M. Wilson comes Dark Duet. Two different voices, in harmony, creating verse that sings and moves on the page, taking the reader through time and space on an infinite symphony of self-exploration. Come dance with them and you may find your own song.

Genres: Poetry

94 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Linda D. Addison was born in Philadelphia in 1952. She is the oldest of nine children and received a bachelor of science in mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University. She is the author of three collections: “Being Full of Light, Insubstantial”, “Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes” and “Animated Objects” (Space & Time Books). Her work has also appeared in numerous publications, including Essence magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and Doorways magazine,.

In 2001, Addison was the first African-American to win the HWA's Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in poetry for “Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes”. Other prominent recipients of this distinguished award include authors, Alice Sebold (Lovely Bones) and J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter Series).

She was honored with her second Bram Stoker Award for her third collection of poems titled “Being Full of Light, Insubstantial” (Space & Time Books).

She is the only author with fiction in three landmark anthologies that celebrate African-Americans speculative writers: the award-winning anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction (Warner Aspect), Dark Dreams (Kensington), and Dark Thirst (Pocket Book).

Her work has made frequent appearances over the years on the honorable mention list for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and Year’s Best Science-Fiction.

Reviews

[Marge Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

DARK DUET, Linda D. Addison and Stephen M. Wilson, Necon e-books, 2012, http://neconebooks.com/darkduet.htm

Dart Duet is a collection of poems dark and light, some as collaborations and some independent. But it is more than that. Tom Picarilli sums it up best in his introduction, "(this) is a collection of poetry that revels in transposing emotion, garnering tempo and impulse, and bringing the reader along into the great mambo line of life."

Poems frequently feature very unique layouts, as with lines from Wilson's Quintessence:

The universe e x p a n d s
Phantom Energy
accelerating us towards our doom
(or a brighter tomorrow?)

Illustrations by the inimitable talent of Jill Bauman and a cover by Kiri Moth offer an extra treat for the eyes. But not only is this visual, it features a number of references to music and dance, such as in their collaboration, "Nocturne":


Amid thunderstorms
and candelabras
a gargoyle chorus
ignites my passion.

The lonely overtones
of goblins melody
in shadowed corners
mirrors lost desire.

Werewolves add baritone
and lighting imprints
shadows on empty halls
echoing desolation.


Both Linda and Stephen had to come to grips with personal tragedies in their own lives in 2009. You can read it all first hand in their Afterward. I believe their shared poems worked as a healing process, as possible to observe in these lines from their collaboration, "The Dancer":

We are fission, fusion, equals and opposites,
as effete effluvia begets macabre miasma.
Love, hate, spirit, flesh, time, matter, space
merge into everything then diffuses into nothing.
We are always, never and forever. Transformed.


There are poems such as "Ouroborus" by Linda, followed by Stephen's "Uroborus", both different in style and yet mesmerizing in content. It was hard to pick a personal favorite, but I think I'd chose: Wilson's "The Snow Queen" (about Lady Diana) and Addison's "Dying From This" (about Charles Bukowski).

Though this poem appears early in the collection, it could just as well be at the end, so I'll leave you with these lines from their "Belll'arte del canto", and urge you to buy this worthy collection:


Who will remember me and you
mad spinning, swirling
through time without end
to dance on the edge of Life.

What a harmonious dark duet
the Bell’arte del canto sends
Linda and Stephen forever
to dance on the edge of Life!

[Michaelbrent Collings · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book of poetry. Though billed as dark/horror poetry, there is a thread of sly humor that runs through much of it, both lightening what could otherwise have been a dreary tone and showing that the authors understand the tight relationship between fear and laughter.

One thing that I liked in particular was the readability of the poems. There are a great many poets who seem to think that the goal of poetry is to be obtuse as possible in order to force readers to consider it deeply. I disagree with this approach. Rather, I feel that the best poems are eminently readable, allowing the readers to comprehend story and image on the very first read... and then permitting them to glean deeper layers of meaning on later examination. Addison and Wilson managed this wonderfully. If you like horror, poetry, or just a good read, this one is highly recommended.

[Wendy S. Delmater · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never reviewed a poetry chapbook before. And although one of the authors is Abyss & Apex’s poetry editor, our Poetry Department has traditionally been its own shop, with its own submissions guidelines, email address, and such. So I felt comfortable looking at this on that level. Also, although I was familiar with Linda’s work I’d never really studied Stephen’s poetry before. All I knew was that he and I had very similar tastes in genre poetry. I was expected to enjoy it, and I did. Stephen’s work is lyrical in a way that touched me to the core.

“Bell’arte del canto” started the collaboration on a wonderful note. Stephen’s “Lonely Starseed” has great imagery– like a hearth burning with cool starshine—and then Linda responds to that with “Star Seed’s Arietta.” It’s death and rebirth.

The collaborative poem, “Nocturne,” while it has lines like The snake dragon’s wings/blow across an Aeolian harp, was too dark for my tastes. This collection’s title warned me that it might contain such things. But Stephen’s “Quintessence” is everything a science fiction poem should, in my estimation, be:

The universe

e x p a n d s,

Phantom Energy

accelerating us towards our doom

(or a brighter tomorrow?)



We, each broken things,

seek an event horizon—

supernatural, technological,

alien, holy, or perverse—

Yes.

Linda’s “The Vortex of Damnation” explores the choices of the innocent in a haunting, visceral way. Stephen’s response poem (this collaboration often takes the form of a poetic conversation) becomes one of the chill voices lashing out at those making such choices. “The Road” is Linda’s exploration of a bleak desert landscape, where “memories of beaches cling to/the roots of cactus.” Riffing off of Carly Simon’s “You’re so Vain,” in “Son of a Gun” Stephen then talks of another desert, the one peopled by those seeking fame. Then Linda’s “Circus of Willis” is a riposte to “Son of a Gun.”

In the section Libretto (love the illustration) the collaboration starts out with a dancer entrancing a king, weaving back and forth between the two subjects’ points of view. I am matter anti-matter; material ethereal chants the dancer. The otherworldliness of the poem comes from both party’s hinted-at shape-shifting and immortality. Then, in “Threshold Exploration,'” Linda puts our society’s insane commercialism into an eternal context . . . "in the seat of madness, we/ wait for days to end, for time/ to reverse/esrever, for infinity to/ uncover how we matter."

Perhaps “The World is a Desert” should be renamed “lament for the crack babies” but with such lyricism that title would never do it justice:

…changed by shadow creatures

born from the neglect

of infants conceived in drugged

mind -less

ness.

“Juno’s Lament” is Stephen’s exploration of the aftermath of spousal betrayal—surely a dark topic if there ever was one—and this cuts like a surgeon’s knife. But as a nice change of pace, "Simian Soliloquy" had me grinning from ear to ear. Thus coincidence does make bards [of us all], indeed.

Linda’s “Remove/Mix/Hope” contrasts the mindsets of War and Peace. Linda’s absurdity “Lions in the Living Room” talks of everyday fears manifesting in slipstreamy ways. Stephen’s “In Praise of Mangos” is one of the poems the foreword likens to a deeply personal diary entry – but what a diarist. Here, he explores the nature of sin, passion, and way they erode commitments is cast as elegant strike-throughs.

Linda’s “Dying From This” talks about how poetry is born in pain. And in “Frost Bitten” Stephen takes us on a trip to faerie, where we dance with snow nymphs and find that time has passed us by. In the collaboration “Unfinished Symphony” our lives are all exactly that. Another collaborative poem, “Shhhhhhhhh!” shows us halos and cogs—singed and backward wings/ the time-pieces of non-linear time/ tick-tocking in random patterns/ of pastfuturepresestfuturepastpast . . .which is followed by Linda’s poem “Ouroboros,” where i want a new Myth/ to become infinite/ good and renewed/ unconsumed by desire (you shouldn’t have eaten that mango, then, I suppose – ed.) Stephen’s response—”Uroboros”—time melting—/distorted like a soft piece by Dalí/ flight interrupted and i a scythe/ harvesting a field of scarlet poppies/ their stolen flames extinguished/ yet Phoenix will rise again in Me. . . A new Myth!

I believe “When Interior Light Becomes Bright (for Eartha Kitt)” is one of the best pieces in the chapbook. It gave me chills, it was so perfect. Well done, Ms. Addison. Then Stephen memorializes Princess Diana in a prose poem that spans fairy tales and the tenuous but very real such a person makes on all of our lives.

I’m not sure whether the “Aberration” explored in Stephen’s next poem is perfect nights with your lover, or lonely nights when the lover is dead and gone. Contrast that with Linda’s “Conversion,” which is an exploration of lovers so self centered they really do not see the other person:

Despite dreams of potent consumption,

neither can see the other

through eyes so brilliant with dark light

even demons wept, angels sigh.

“Pele” likens a critic to a rather unfriendly volcano. On the other hand, “Dico, King of Hat Tricks” (originally published in A&A) talks about a friendly ally. “Giving up the Ghost: California, circa 2013” envisions ghost-powered automobiles. This is contrasts with “Meditation, circa 9025” which does a rather unnerving end-run on genetic engineering powering things in the future.

I have not touched on all the poems in this collection, but everything from friendships to family ties, from humor to pain, love to loss, life to death is in here. It was a privilege to read.

[Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the introduction to Dark Duet, we are reminded that a duet is not only two in accompaniment, but also a conflict “engaged in an attempt to resolve itself through harmony.” The poems in this collection reflect this definition far better than the common perception. The works here are menacing, mesmerizing, challenging, and difficult. In other words, exactly what poetry was meant to be.

Addison and Wilson work well in conflict. Each line is a challenge to the next. A dare. A temptation. Lead me there, but I will not go quietly. Questions elude my lips/ of love and death remind us that seemingly incongruous things are united in our unknowing of their very essence. Even the structure of many of the poems reflects a fractured world full of more questions than answers. Using the modernist approach to poetry in both lyrical structure and form, Addison and Wilson have created a work of dark wonder. Heavily illustrated, the images draw forth elements from the poems without giving away their secrets. Compliments to the work, but not solutions to the dark shadows.

Dark Duets is that rare breed of modern poetry that taps into the Gothic spirit of Byron, Shelley, and their ilk, yet sits firmly in the driver’s seat of modernism. A rare and accomplished achievement.

[Gothic Readers Book Club · Rating 5 out of 5]

WINNER OF THE GOTHIC READERS CHOICE AWARD

Dark Duet is a collection of poetry that must be read. It demands your attention, luring you into its dark depths with subtle strokes and haunting melodies. This is the poetic world of shadows and light, good and evil, past, present, and future.You will not find cliche tropes here. Instead, Addison and Wilson weave complex tapestries of sinister enchantment. You must read on, but you fear what comes next. It's poetry of the unknown secrets and dark places that lurk just around the corner.

If you like: Lord Byron, Samuel Coleridge

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