Interview with Simon MacCulloch
First, please tell the readers a bit about your poetry collection The Eyes of Azathoth that just came out this month, published through Jackanapes Press. Jackanapes Press describes it as a “…mind-shattering sonnet cycle of epic proportions, inspired by Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth and Clark Ashton Smith’s The Hashish Eater.” What about these two books and two authors inspired you to write this sonnet collection? And what are the different themes you explore in the collection?
I’ve always wanted to write some kind of dark but colourful epic cosmic horror visionary gnostic quest fantasy type thingy. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was probably the first work of that kind that I read. Like Homer’s Odyssey, it has all the variety and inventiveness of an episodic adventure narrative, but also a great sense of drive towards an all-revealing, cataclysmic finale. The climactic confrontation with Nyarlathotep is one of the most powerful passages Lovecraft ever wrote. Smith’s The Hashish Eater does the same sort of thing, in sumptuous verse. Stapledon’s great novel Star Maker is a science fiction equivalent. These writings are all at heart about one person plunging nakedly into the universe; they search through all time and space for a god of sorts, and they find it. But of course it’s not necessarily what they wanted or expected.
The breakthrough from desire to realisation of that vague ambition of mine came when I realised that I could fruitfully (a) steal a poetic form from Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth; and (b) steal ideas for subordinate stories from Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book. The self-imposed challenge then became to use all the 222 entries in the Commonplace Book, albeit often in combination and sometimes only very tangentially, and yet still maintain a strong ongoing narrative with a big climax at the end (which Fungi from Yuggoth does not have). So I ended up with 155 sonnets about a jaded sorcerer who embarks on a mystic/astronomical quest to uncover the “dark universe” and eventually undergoes a transformative confrontation with no less than Azathoth Itself. On the way we have my fanciful extrapolations from Lovecraft’s inspirational jottings, tackling everything from “Disintegration of all matter to electrons & finally empty space…” to “Vampire dog”.
Inevitably that meant that it turned out very Lovecraftian in its themes - as S T Joshi has observed in his endorsement, these include “cosmicism, the call of history and heredity, the realm of fantasy and the dangers of scientific advance”. But that doesn’t mean it’s restricted to the Cthulhu Mythos - it’s packed with all the well-loved traditional gothic horror motifs and characters as well (vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, golems and others). If I’ve added anything of my own thematically I’d say it’s a stronger emphasis on irony, grim humour and the idea that existence is a black joke. Not that that’s not present in Lovecraft too! But if The Eyes of Azathoth has one central unifying theme and distinguishing feature that is it.
What made you decide you wanted to become a writer? What other authors inspired you, if any. What inspires you in general. Do you also write fiction, or just poetry?
I can’t claim that I ever did, as I’ve never written full-time or professionally. But I inherited from my mother two attributes that she inherited from her mother, i.e. a love of the written word and a love of spooky things. As a result I started writing supernatural horror stories at quite an early age. The first of those, entitled “The Ghostly Tale of John Brown”, was inspired by a line in the old song “John Brown’s Body” - “John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave”. Sadly the ms. for that is long lost, but the one for its immediate sequel, “The Ghostly Tale of Peter McWeeny” survives, and its early date can perhaps be inferred from the fact that the author had not yet learned to do joined-up handwriting.
Ever since then I’ve engaged with horror fiction on and off in various forms, inspired by all the great 19th and 20th century practitioners of the art, especially those who excelled in short stories (among them Poe, M R James, Lovecraft, Bradbury and, supreme in my estimation, Ramsey Campbell). That was down to Mum too - how many other horror fans can say that their mother introduced them to the Pan Book of Horror Stories while they were still at primary school (with appropriate care as to which stories were permitted to be read)? But although I produced a dozen or so short horror stories of my own in my early adult life and got about two thirds of them published (most notably one in Volume XVIII of Karl Edward Wagner’s great Year’s Best Horror series), I found I had a stronger aptitude for non-fiction and for several years devoted most of my limited writing time to book reviews and critical essays (all in the horror field, of course). Poetry reared its head now and then but it was only in 2017 that I decided to focus on it exclusively, as I have done ever since. I don’t write only horror/weird poetry, but that remains my preferred genre by far and accounts for the biggest chunk of my output. It helps that I tend to prefer traditional metre and rhyme (though again by no means exclusively) and the weird poetry field in particular seems laudably receptive to such forms.
What does your writing process look like? Do you plan your poetry in advance?
Sometimes I have an idea for a poem, or an appealing first line, in my head before I sit down to write; those days I count myself lucky. Occasionally I’ll write to a theme set by a submission call. Sometimes I’ll resort to a story or a picture for inspiration. But most often now I end up sitting down at my desk at 8.00 am telling myself “I must write another horror poem this morning” and then staring at a blank document on the screen for an hour or so, thinking “I’ve dried up. I’ll never write again” etc. Eventually in desperation to get something down by lunchtime I’ll force myself to start writing what seems to me at that point to be a very poor substitute for whatever it was that I’d failed to have in mind. Usually after a few lines my flabby drunken slut of a Muse will roll over in bed and groan “Christ, is that idiot trying to write again?”, then, fearing that she’ll be kicked out of the Muses’ Union if what I’m committing to the screen ever gets out, she takes a grudging hand in the process and the writing gets gradually easier. On average I’d say it takes me two to three hours to complete a short poem (maybe 20 lines or so).
What made you decide to go the indie publishing route instead of traditional? Are you working on any new projects right now, or have any plans of releasing another book in the near future?
If you write poetry you don’t get to make decisions like that, you take whatever you can! I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate with The Eyes of Azathoth, in that S T Joshi, whom I knew from former times when I’d contribute essays and book reviews to a couple of his publications, is of course now the editor of Spectral Realms, undoubtedly the current world leader in weird poetry periodicals, and was so enthusiastic about the poems I sent him that I ended up sending him the whole sonnet sequence, hoping that his publisher Hippocampus Press might be interested. To my delight he not only recommended Jackanapes Press but offered to send the thing to Dan Sauer there himself. You can’t ask for a better introduction than that! And I honestly can’t imagine a better publishing experience than this has been, with Dan really excelling himself with the gorgeous and perfectly apt cover, obtaining some endorsements which are a dream come true as far as I’m concerned, providing ads and review copies, sending me labels to sign to be inserted in those copies ordered direct from Jackanapes Press, and so on. I’d be very surprised if a “traditional” route proved so author-friendly, efficient and effective in turning out a beautiful product like this.
Obviously therefore I’m very much hoping that this won’t be the last book I do with Dan. If there is a follow-up, it will probably be a collection called Rime Macabre, consisting of a series of 128 poems in various mainly traditional forms each based on a classic or favourite short horror story. It’s arranged in chronological order with whole sections devoted to a few major figures like Lovecraft, so I like to think of it as an informal poetic history of the horror story in English since Poe. Some of the contents have already been published individually here and there. Obviously its chances of seeing the light of day as a whole will be greatly improved if anyone actually buys The Eyes of Azathoth, so take the hint, folks.
Other than that, already completed is another sonnet sequence in the same vein as Eyes but inspired by Dante’s Inferno rather than by Lovecraft (only 100 sonnets in that one); a series of horrific/surrealistic reminiscences/reflections in verse on growing up in a rather rough London suburb in the 1960s (with mythopoeic underpinning courtesy of the legend of the Minotaur); and greatest of all a 16,000-line Tolkienesqe/Dunsanian epic quest fantasy in rhyming verse about the imaginary miniature inhabitants of my bungalow. Sadly the latter (as with the others mentioned here) has so far failed to find a publisher. Can’t think why.
So for the time being my fan will have to be content with The Eyes of Azathoth and ongoing publication of individual poems or very small groups in various web and print zines, which I’m pleased to say is still a reasonably frequent occurrence.
Who do you recommend read The Eyes of Azathoth?
You. Everyone else reading this. Readers of Spectral Realms, Lovecraftiana and the other fine publications that carry work of this kind. Everyone who likes Lovecraft, weird poetry or supernatural horror fiction generally. Everyone who respects the views of S T Joshi, John Shirley or Adam Bolivar (my esteemed endorsers). Everyone who appreciates Dan Sauer’s magnificent cover design. Everyone who writes a review of it (always helps to read ’em first). My fans (both of them). Anyone who wants something to read while listening to terrific Lovecraft-themed Death Metal albums like Seven Crowns and Seven Seals by Sulphur Aeon. Anyone who’s fed up with poetry that reads like prose pointlessly chopped up into cookie-cutter pieces. Anyone who recognises the statement “Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a ‘read’, commits an anthropological crime” (Joseph Brodsky) as bullshit. Everyone who knows that an iamb is not a facial appendage of Yog-Sothoth. All the worms who devoured the corpse of H P Lovecraft and are now walking around in rubber masks thinking “They don’t write ‘em like I used to”. World religious and political leaders (if not already included in the previous category). God. Any passing Cthulhoid entities who want to find out what we really think of them. Anyone who likes to get value for money and so will appreciate the fact that the collection is one sonnet more than the entire extant Shakespeare sonnet oeuvre. Anyone looking for Halloween or Christmas gifts for any of the foregoing. Anyone who wants to make me happy.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Nothing that they won’t have heard a hundred times already from people much better qualified to give it than I am. But the bottom line as far as I’m concerned is simply this: write lots of stuff and send lots of stuff out. I know that sounds like throwing shit against a wall and most of the time that’s exactly what it feels like, but that all changes as soon as an editor tells you they really liked something you wrote. And if you ever get as far as actually having an honest-to-God reader tell you that, consider yourself made!
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
At the risk of sounding like I’m making an award acceptance speech (dream on), I’d like to thank S T Joshi for making The Eyes of Azathoth a publishing reality by acting as my unpaid agent for it; Dan Sauer for making the publication process terrific fun and the end product everything I could have hoped for, not least by his superb cover design; Gavin Chappell, editor of Lovecraftiana, and Peter Coleborn, owner of The Alchemy Press, for helping to promote the book; and you, Sarah, not only for giving me this platform to publicise it but even more so for your support in publishing my work regularly in Exquisite Death and commenting so kindly on it - making that sort of connection with someone is what it’s really all about, in the end.
I’ve always wanted to write some kind of dark but colourful epic cosmic horror visionary gnostic quest fantasy type thingy. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was probably the first work of that kind that I read. Like Homer’s Odyssey, it has all the variety and inventiveness of an episodic adventure narrative, but also a great sense of drive towards an all-revealing, cataclysmic finale. The climactic confrontation with Nyarlathotep is one of the most powerful passages Lovecraft ever wrote. Smith’s The Hashish Eater does the same sort of thing, in sumptuous verse. Stapledon’s great novel Star Maker is a science fiction equivalent. These writings are all at heart about one person plunging nakedly into the universe; they search through all time and space for a god of sorts, and they find it. But of course it’s not necessarily what they wanted or expected.
The breakthrough from desire to realisation of that vague ambition of mine came when I realised that I could fruitfully (a) steal a poetic form from Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth; and (b) steal ideas for subordinate stories from Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book. The self-imposed challenge then became to use all the 222 entries in the Commonplace Book, albeit often in combination and sometimes only very tangentially, and yet still maintain a strong ongoing narrative with a big climax at the end (which Fungi from Yuggoth does not have). So I ended up with 155 sonnets about a jaded sorcerer who embarks on a mystic/astronomical quest to uncover the “dark universe” and eventually undergoes a transformative confrontation with no less than Azathoth Itself. On the way we have my fanciful extrapolations from Lovecraft’s inspirational jottings, tackling everything from “Disintegration of all matter to electrons & finally empty space…” to “Vampire dog”.
Inevitably that meant that it turned out very Lovecraftian in its themes - as S T Joshi has observed in his endorsement, these include “cosmicism, the call of history and heredity, the realm of fantasy and the dangers of scientific advance”. But that doesn’t mean it’s restricted to the Cthulhu Mythos - it’s packed with all the well-loved traditional gothic horror motifs and characters as well (vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, golems and others). If I’ve added anything of my own thematically I’d say it’s a stronger emphasis on irony, grim humour and the idea that existence is a black joke. Not that that’s not present in Lovecraft too! But if The Eyes of Azathoth has one central unifying theme and distinguishing feature that is it.
What made you decide you wanted to become a writer? What other authors inspired you, if any. What inspires you in general. Do you also write fiction, or just poetry?
I can’t claim that I ever did, as I’ve never written full-time or professionally. But I inherited from my mother two attributes that she inherited from her mother, i.e. a love of the written word and a love of spooky things. As a result I started writing supernatural horror stories at quite an early age. The first of those, entitled “The Ghostly Tale of John Brown”, was inspired by a line in the old song “John Brown’s Body” - “John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave”. Sadly the ms. for that is long lost, but the one for its immediate sequel, “The Ghostly Tale of Peter McWeeny” survives, and its early date can perhaps be inferred from the fact that the author had not yet learned to do joined-up handwriting.
Ever since then I’ve engaged with horror fiction on and off in various forms, inspired by all the great 19th and 20th century practitioners of the art, especially those who excelled in short stories (among them Poe, M R James, Lovecraft, Bradbury and, supreme in my estimation, Ramsey Campbell). That was down to Mum too - how many other horror fans can say that their mother introduced them to the Pan Book of Horror Stories while they were still at primary school (with appropriate care as to which stories were permitted to be read)? But although I produced a dozen or so short horror stories of my own in my early adult life and got about two thirds of them published (most notably one in Volume XVIII of Karl Edward Wagner’s great Year’s Best Horror series), I found I had a stronger aptitude for non-fiction and for several years devoted most of my limited writing time to book reviews and critical essays (all in the horror field, of course). Poetry reared its head now and then but it was only in 2017 that I decided to focus on it exclusively, as I have done ever since. I don’t write only horror/weird poetry, but that remains my preferred genre by far and accounts for the biggest chunk of my output. It helps that I tend to prefer traditional metre and rhyme (though again by no means exclusively) and the weird poetry field in particular seems laudably receptive to such forms.
What does your writing process look like? Do you plan your poetry in advance?
Sometimes I have an idea for a poem, or an appealing first line, in my head before I sit down to write; those days I count myself lucky. Occasionally I’ll write to a theme set by a submission call. Sometimes I’ll resort to a story or a picture for inspiration. But most often now I end up sitting down at my desk at 8.00 am telling myself “I must write another horror poem this morning” and then staring at a blank document on the screen for an hour or so, thinking “I’ve dried up. I’ll never write again” etc. Eventually in desperation to get something down by lunchtime I’ll force myself to start writing what seems to me at that point to be a very poor substitute for whatever it was that I’d failed to have in mind. Usually after a few lines my flabby drunken slut of a Muse will roll over in bed and groan “Christ, is that idiot trying to write again?”, then, fearing that she’ll be kicked out of the Muses’ Union if what I’m committing to the screen ever gets out, she takes a grudging hand in the process and the writing gets gradually easier. On average I’d say it takes me two to three hours to complete a short poem (maybe 20 lines or so).
What made you decide to go the indie publishing route instead of traditional? Are you working on any new projects right now, or have any plans of releasing another book in the near future?
If you write poetry you don’t get to make decisions like that, you take whatever you can! I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate with The Eyes of Azathoth, in that S T Joshi, whom I knew from former times when I’d contribute essays and book reviews to a couple of his publications, is of course now the editor of Spectral Realms, undoubtedly the current world leader in weird poetry periodicals, and was so enthusiastic about the poems I sent him that I ended up sending him the whole sonnet sequence, hoping that his publisher Hippocampus Press might be interested. To my delight he not only recommended Jackanapes Press but offered to send the thing to Dan Sauer there himself. You can’t ask for a better introduction than that! And I honestly can’t imagine a better publishing experience than this has been, with Dan really excelling himself with the gorgeous and perfectly apt cover, obtaining some endorsements which are a dream come true as far as I’m concerned, providing ads and review copies, sending me labels to sign to be inserted in those copies ordered direct from Jackanapes Press, and so on. I’d be very surprised if a “traditional” route proved so author-friendly, efficient and effective in turning out a beautiful product like this.
Obviously therefore I’m very much hoping that this won’t be the last book I do with Dan. If there is a follow-up, it will probably be a collection called Rime Macabre, consisting of a series of 128 poems in various mainly traditional forms each based on a classic or favourite short horror story. It’s arranged in chronological order with whole sections devoted to a few major figures like Lovecraft, so I like to think of it as an informal poetic history of the horror story in English since Poe. Some of the contents have already been published individually here and there. Obviously its chances of seeing the light of day as a whole will be greatly improved if anyone actually buys The Eyes of Azathoth, so take the hint, folks.
Other than that, already completed is another sonnet sequence in the same vein as Eyes but inspired by Dante’s Inferno rather than by Lovecraft (only 100 sonnets in that one); a series of horrific/surrealistic reminiscences/reflections in verse on growing up in a rather rough London suburb in the 1960s (with mythopoeic underpinning courtesy of the legend of the Minotaur); and greatest of all a 16,000-line Tolkienesqe/Dunsanian epic quest fantasy in rhyming verse about the imaginary miniature inhabitants of my bungalow. Sadly the latter (as with the others mentioned here) has so far failed to find a publisher. Can’t think why.
So for the time being my fan will have to be content with The Eyes of Azathoth and ongoing publication of individual poems or very small groups in various web and print zines, which I’m pleased to say is still a reasonably frequent occurrence.
Who do you recommend read The Eyes of Azathoth?
You. Everyone else reading this. Readers of Spectral Realms, Lovecraftiana and the other fine publications that carry work of this kind. Everyone who likes Lovecraft, weird poetry or supernatural horror fiction generally. Everyone who respects the views of S T Joshi, John Shirley or Adam Bolivar (my esteemed endorsers). Everyone who appreciates Dan Sauer’s magnificent cover design. Everyone who writes a review of it (always helps to read ’em first). My fans (both of them). Anyone who wants something to read while listening to terrific Lovecraft-themed Death Metal albums like Seven Crowns and Seven Seals by Sulphur Aeon. Anyone who’s fed up with poetry that reads like prose pointlessly chopped up into cookie-cutter pieces. Anyone who recognises the statement “Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a ‘read’, commits an anthropological crime” (Joseph Brodsky) as bullshit. Everyone who knows that an iamb is not a facial appendage of Yog-Sothoth. All the worms who devoured the corpse of H P Lovecraft and are now walking around in rubber masks thinking “They don’t write ‘em like I used to”. World religious and political leaders (if not already included in the previous category). God. Any passing Cthulhoid entities who want to find out what we really think of them. Anyone who likes to get value for money and so will appreciate the fact that the collection is one sonnet more than the entire extant Shakespeare sonnet oeuvre. Anyone looking for Halloween or Christmas gifts for any of the foregoing. Anyone who wants to make me happy.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Nothing that they won’t have heard a hundred times already from people much better qualified to give it than I am. But the bottom line as far as I’m concerned is simply this: write lots of stuff and send lots of stuff out. I know that sounds like throwing shit against a wall and most of the time that’s exactly what it feels like, but that all changes as soon as an editor tells you they really liked something you wrote. And if you ever get as far as actually having an honest-to-God reader tell you that, consider yourself made!
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
At the risk of sounding like I’m making an award acceptance speech (dream on), I’d like to thank S T Joshi for making The Eyes of Azathoth a publishing reality by acting as my unpaid agent for it; Dan Sauer for making the publication process terrific fun and the end product everything I could have hoped for, not least by his superb cover design; Gavin Chappell, editor of Lovecraftiana, and Peter Coleborn, owner of The Alchemy Press, for helping to promote the book; and you, Sarah, not only for giving me this platform to publicise it but even more so for your support in publishing my work regularly in Exquisite Death and commenting so kindly on it - making that sort of connection with someone is what it’s really all about, in the end.
The Eyes of Azathoth by Simon MacCulloch