POETRY, SONGS AND STYGIAN STORIES
Review by Dave Wolff
Author: Lucas McPherson
Illustrated by Cyan Jenkins
Compiled in 2009, Lucas McPherson’s Poetry, Songs and Stygian Stories is a collection of prose and fiction that swings open doors previously sealed by the rigidly enforced conformity fostered both by religion and media; two apparently opposing forces that operate together more effectively than some might suspect. The ideas and theories presented in this written work establish an alternative to both, even it we don’t realize it until we sever the bonds they secure on our minds through a level of contradictory social pressure that seemingly persists in rising each passing day. Those who criticize the anger and indignation in these words, all for the man upstairs, are reminded by the other guy to practice what they preach and consider the logs in their own eyes first. What’s important to keep in mind is this book is not so much a challenge to readers to “better” themselves by changing what they are or conforming to society’s demands as it is a reminder of one’s own will and personal power that continues to thrive regardless of how zealously it is suppressed by those too consumed by the status quo to think for themselves. The conceptual pieces offered here for scrutiny call to mind the words and images of another gifted poet, Jillanna Babb of the dance troupe Corpsewax Dollies, who writes “I have better things to do/places to go/Pleasures and Torments/You will Never Know” in “She Killed,” but that of course is another story. The same mode of thought exists in the poems and song lyrics of Poetry, Songs and Stygian Stories, in relation to the roles of male and female, popular culture and independent thought, as well as adoptive parents, alcoholism/addiction, psychic/emotional vampires and people who say one thing while doing another. The relation to psychic and emotional vampirism and the effect it has on the vampirized is intriguing to consider while assimilating this book as a whole. The fiction written for Poetry, Songs and Stygian Stories is equally compelling, relying heavily on vampire lore to get their point across regarding human nature. With illustrations by freelance illustrator Cyan Jenkins, this book is another veritable time bomb waiting for the moment to explode… “at the moment we conquer the lurking fear in our own souls” as the preface of Necronomicon would have it.