For more than half a century, Darrell Schweitzer has been contributing poems of fantasy, horror, and the supernatural to countless venues. Dancing Before Azathoth is a major retrospective of Schweitzer's verse over the past two or three decades, selecting the best poems from earlier collections-including Groping Toward the Light (2000) and Ghosts of Past and Future (2008)-with uncollected poems that have appeared in Weirdbook, Spectral Realms, Asimov's, Space and Time, and other periodicals.
The title poem is one of many that draw inspiration from the work of H. P. Lovecraft, emphasizing the cosmicism in that writer's work as well as exploring the human tragedies implicit in his tales (as in "Lavinia Whateley"). More conventional motifs-the witch, the werewolf, the ghost-are given new life in Schweitzer's contemplative poems.
A profound student of history, Schweitzer sees horror in the bountiful realms of classical myth, as in "The Ghosts of Troy" and "Hadrian's Tomb." From an opposite perspective, Schweitzer looks to the future and finds abundant sources of terror there as well,
Terrifying yet poignant, sinister yet sensitive, Darrell Schweitzer's poetry-whether in formal meter or free verse-will remain in the reader's memory as the work of a master craftsman who understands both the sources of terror and the depths of human emotion.
