A Lovecraft eZine reader, April Vessell, is doing a presentation soon on H.P. Lovecraft, and she could use a prop.  She said either the Necronomicon or Cthulhu would be great, if anyone out there wants to volunteer.  The presentation is a version of Steve Allen’s Television show “Meeting of the Minds,” in which the host interviews figures from history. April will be playing Lovecraft, and as such, all lines in the script are direct quotations from Lovecraft himself.

If you would like to donate a prop, email me at michaeldaviswriter@gmail.com .  Below is a sample of a Lovecraft poem April is working on (be sure to comment below and let her know what you think!):

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This is ongoing. I will update as I add new sections. I plan to add three more sections, the headings of which are already included.

Lovecraft Scriptor Tenebris Vita Et Terribilis Somnia 

(Lovecraft’s Life: The Dark and Terrible Dreams)

I.              Infantia

As a child, I frolicked freely, yet in a way beyond my peers.

I studied vehemently music, gods, and astral spheres,

The sciences, the classics, philosophy of yore.

I was a bibliophile turned thespian, setting scenes, enacting lore.

At times I was a Holmes-like sleuth,

At times, an Indian, others a zobo player.

The variety of play was vast in my youth

I even ventured as a chemist assayer!

I was decidedly pugnacious and too obstinate to cower

Yet nicknamed “Little Sunshine”—shades of Schopenhauer!

II.            Tenebris et Timore

My youthful vigor quickly diminished

As illness accompanied trepidation of night.

Perpetually haunted by dreams of dark creatures,

Night gaunts shadowed and plagued me with fright.

My hauntings transpired as phantasm and gore

With horror and visions of souls cast o’er,

Of old ones, of Cthulhu, of Yog Sothoth,

Of elder ones in the arctic, razed by slave shoggoths.

III.           Matrimonium 

After years of reclusion, marriage found me

Though, to a woman antithetic to my traits.

Outgoing, social, and JEWISH of all things,

The most unlikely of all mates.

She was also a writer of the macabre and strange,

I accompanied her to New York—Oh my, what a change!

The people, the bustle, the odor, the hullabaloo

Whence first I enjoyed, thence I withdrew

After two years of marriage, my Sonia left me deserted

My stance on leaving New England, I reasserted.

When her work took her to Cleveland, hitherto I’d not go.

I am Providence! Of this she should know!

IV.          Civitatem et Alienigenarum 

Elitist and antiquarian describes my juvenile bearing

I spoke what I saw was truth, however daring

The oldest emotion of mankind is fear,

the strongest being that of the unknown

The city writhes with things quite queer,

With impure blood and formidable tone.

I abhorred New York, so discordant a city!

Filled with Jews, Arabs, and all others—a pity!

Though as I aged and my sensed dulled,

My repugnance for others calmed to a lull.

V.           Paradiso Recuperavit et Redeunt

VI.          In Seni, Philosophia, Politica, et Parcus

VII.         Finis

Most information for this poem was taken from S.T. Joshi’s edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters.” The structure, rhyme scheme and meter of this poem are quite loosely based on a combination of Lovecraft’s poems, A Poe-et’s Nightmare, Poemata Minora, and Waste Paper: A Poem of Profound Insignificance. The English translations of the headings are as follows: “Infancy”, “Darkness and Fear”, “Marriage”, “The City and Strangers”, “Paradise Regained and Homecoming”, “The Old Gentleman, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics”, and “The End”.