Photo: Vampire Poetry

The Vampire Poetry panel conducted by Val Toh and myself at Conflux 13 was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Most of the audience seemed to like it too! Here are your panelists, getting into the spirit of things.



For general interest, this was our playlist.

"Christobel, Part One" by Samuel Taylor Colerige (1797). Extracts read by Val Toh.

"The Vampire" by Charles Baudelaire (1857). Trans. William Aggeler. Read by Val Toh.

"The Vampire" by Conrad Aiken (1916). Read by Kyla Ward.

"Oil and Blood", William Butler Yeats(1933). Read by Kyla Ward.

"Sanguine Taggers" by Anne K. Schwader (2011). Read by Kyla Ward.

"Like Angels, Winged" by Michael R. Burch (2013?). Read by Val Toh.

"The Music of Vampires" by Bruce Boston (2015). Read by Kyla Ward.

In most cases, poems have been dated to their collection.

The passage I read concerning the Leanann Sidhe came from Yeats's Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888).

Appearance: Grave Concerns

For those who simply can't get enough of me performing my own poetry, I will occupying a slot at the Demonic Industries at 4.00 pm, Sunday, 15th October.

Demonic Industries is an initiative by some literary-minded folk including my fellow Theatre of Blood alumni Irving Gregory. It stages readings, performances and lectures "...exploring the erotic, exemplum and extraordinary around us." These take place on Sunday evenings at the old Temperance Society hall, 122 Smith Street, Summer Hill, Sydney. Like everything else in the inner city, it has been converted into a quirky bar.

In keeping with the theme, I will be performing "The Kite", "The Cat's Cortege" and "The Necromancer's Question". I may reprise "Tattered Livery" from Conflux 13, if there is time. So come along, and you will also catch "What the Caretaker Saw" by an as yet unknown presenter!