War: Dark Poems

by Alessandro Manzetti, Marge Simon

Look in my eyes. My bronze skin reflects the flames of the battles. I feed on bullets and shrapnel. I have trenches instead of veins and a bombardier's whirring plays my favorite symphony inside my big head. This is my story, with some of my best camouflages and disguises, and you should expect your peace plans to fail. Because that's what I do for a living. Look at my million golden teeth necklace. Ring any bells? Maybe you're too young. I probably should have mentioned the fireworks over the Baghdad night sky, my new friend, or the live broadcast of two great skyscrapers disintegrating. You know what I'm talking about, right? So, you can call me by one of my many Great General, Lock-box of the Powerful, Red Rain, Lord of Steel or, more simply, WAR. I appear as strife of many kinds, from Stalingrad to Scotland. Africa to Afghanistan, the civil war of Italy and the War Between the States, ghostly wars, drug wars, the battle of the sexes, World Wars I, II and visions of a holocaust yet to come. It's all herein and more, with poems both collaborative and individual. Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing-Tales from the Darkest Depths.

102 pages, Paperback

Published June 7, 2018

About the author

Alessandro Manzetti (Rome, Italy) is a Three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, scriptwriter and essayst of horror fiction and dark poetry whose work has been published extensively (more than 40 books) in Italian and English, including novels, short and long fiction, poetry, essays, graphic novels and collections.
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English publications include his novels Shanti - The Sadist Heaven (2019) and Naraka - The Ultimate Human Breeding (2018), the novella The Keeper of Chernobyl (2019), the collections The Radioactive Bride (2020), The Garden of Delight (2017), The Monster, the Bad and the Ugly (2016, with Paolo Di Orazio), and The Massacre of the Mermaids (2015), the poetry collections Dancing with Maria's Ghost (2021), Whitechapel Rhapsody (2020), The Place of Broken Things (2019, with Linda D. Addison), War (2018, with Marge Simon), No Mercy (2017), Sacrificial Nights (2016, with Bruce Boston) Eden Underground (2015), Venus Intervention (2014, with Corrine de Winter), and the graphic novels Calcutta Horror (2019), Her Life Matters (2020) and The Inhabitant of the Lake (2021), and the Guide '150 Exquisite Horror Books' (2021)
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He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death (2016), The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (2017, with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (2018, with Daniele Bonfanti)
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His stories and poems have appeared in Italian, USA, UK, Australian, Polish and Russian magazines, such as Weird Tales Magazine, Dark Moon Digest, Splatterpunk Zine, Disturbed Digest, Space and Time, The Horror Zine, Illumen, Devolution Z, Hinnom, Recompose, Polu Texni, Nothing's Sacred, Okolica Strachu, and anthologies such as Splatterpunk Forever, The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 13, Classic Monsters Unleashed, Best Hardcore Horror of the Year Vol. 2, 4, 5, 6, The Big Book of Blasphemy, Midnight Under the Big Top, Bones III, Rhysling Anthology (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. 3 and 4, The Beauty of Death Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, World of Light and Darkness, One of Us, Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, Tales of the Lost Vol. 3, Hope: Poems of Hope and Resilience From the Pandemic, Sorrow and many others

He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death (2016), The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (2017, with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (2018, with Daniele Bonfanti)

Awards and Nominations:
• Bram Stoker Awards 2021 winner
• Bram Stoker Awards 2019 winner
• Bram Stoker Awards 2015 winner
• SFPA Elgin Awards 2019 winner
• Bram Stoker Awards 2019 three-time nominee
• Bram Stoker Awards 2018 nominee
• Bram Stoker Awards 2017 two-time nominee
• Bram Stoker Awards 2016 two-time nominee
• Bram Stoker Awards 2014 nominee
• Splatterpunk Awards 2019 nominee
• Splatterpunk Awards 2018 nominee
• Rhysling Awards 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 nominee
• Elgin Awards 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 nominee
• This is Horror Awards 2017 nominee
• HWA Specialty Press Awards 2017 winner (as CEO of Independent Legions Press)

Furthermore, he received honorable mentions (for stories and poems) in Ellen Datlow's 'The Best Horror of the Year' Vol. 7-8-9-10-12-13
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​He is the CEO & Founder of Independent Legions Publishing, editor of 'Molotov Magazine' (in Italian), HWA Active member and a former HWA Board of Trustees member. In 2021 he served the Science Fiction Poetry Association as the Rhysling Award Chair.

He lives in Trieste, Italy
website: www.battiago.com

Reviews

[Angela Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful words for an ugly topic—War by Marge Simon and Alessandro Manzetti lay bare the bones of conflict and display them, every detail, for us to examine from the safe confines of our living rooms.

Raw, political and very real, these poems don’t hold back with their messages. The imagery is vivid, painting a mural of death across the reader’s mind. The poems don’t focus on any particular war, but offer a varied box of experiences. From jungle to desert and everywhere between, we are given a glimpse of the tragedy we wreak upon ourselves.

Without sounding like a 70s protest, the verses in War don’t come across as judgmental. They state facts and provide the experience so that we may judge. Besides the lovely writing, I have to give major credit to the illustrator as well.

Stefano Cardoselli has taken my breath away with his complex and engaging images. Darkly humorous, I found myself spending as much time looking at his art as I did reading and thinking about the poetry.

A wonderful book, I highly recommend it and wish Simon, Manzetti and Cardoselli all the best with this powerful book.