They Write by Night, Episode 11

Dread

The best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief, the epoch of incredulity, the season of Light, the season of Darkness, the spring of hope, the winter of despair. . .

That Dickens, damn! He really had a bead on Our Times. And, just think, he died a hundred and fifty years before our times. I can’t add a thing to his run-down of how it is, except:

It is the era of obliviousness, it is the era of dread.

In #11, we’re carrying on in our season of darkness, and we’re doing Dread. Between a fine John Altman-lit portrayal of fear in He Walked by Night and the best film noir description of dread in Double Indemnity, this installment offers They Write by Night aficionados plenty to dread, except for the widespread dread of poems that don’t rhyme. R.S. Gywnn’s sonnet, “The Great Fear,” rhymes—smart, unpredictable rhymes, not trite, horrible ones like blue, and true, and you. Which I dread.

Also: Joe calls and tries to get me to drive over to The House of Pies, but I’ve got stuff on my plate—not a real plate with actual pie. Not an imaginary garden with real noir toads in it. I have to do a mea culpa type of thing, re. this word. (See, view, TWBN #10). And the word isn’t Dread. Oh no, it goes on longer.

– Suzanne Lummis

Top image credit to www.Poetry.LA

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