Christopher Merrill

Christopher Merrill has a great poem in TheWolf, April 2012, issue 26, called "Black". It's a great example at modern gothic work. Just like Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" [1842] and the early gothic fiction that emerged in the 1800s, there's an underlying sense of terror, a confusion you cannot pin down. It's eerie but not repulsive. It draws you towards it, and you don't look away until it's too late. That takes a special kind of skill, it's a balancing act that's very fun to read. 

Here's an excerpt:


Color of holiness, of the first demon summoned
At dusk to watch the storm approach, of her favorite dress.
Black of the origin, black of the end—of what?

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[...]

Root and core of the white
Oak split by lightning on their final afternoon.

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Shoeblack, black belt, black magic practiced in the back

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