Why Horror Fans Should Read George Sterling

I love George Sterling, and so should you. Especially if you are a fan of horror, or weird fiction, or even early forms of "fantasy" a la Dunsany and Eddison. Because Sterling is cut from the same cloth and treads on similar charnel grounds.

George Sterling was a poet from Sag Harbour, New York, who emigrated to Los Angeles (particularly Oakland); he wrote some of the finest poetry in American letters and inspired devotion in many tied to weird fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. He is known for his eccentric, individualistic personality and potent, visual poetry.

George Sterling (1869 - 1926) was an American poet who sent America into a number of frenzies.

My favourite poetry collection of Sterling's is A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems, its titular poem being immensely powerful. When it was first published in 1907 in Cosmopolitan Magazine, it made headlines. People were infuriated by its psychedelic imagery, sensuousness, ecstatic lines, and verse that came to life! When Ambrose Beirce, a friend of Sterling's, first read the poem, he remarked:

"No poem in English of equal length has so bewildering a wealth of imagination. Not Spenser himself has flung such a profusion of pearls into so small a casket. Why, man, it takes away the breath!"

After this, Sterling also caused havoc and mayhem in Los Angeles, when he set up his own art colony and subsisted off the land. "They attended pagan ceremonies in the sacred grove," later accounts go. "Where Sterling presided in Pan-like animal skins and a flower crown." On top of this, they hunted and foraged for their own food; sometimes, these artists even ate a strict diet of only one animal: abalone.

"Oh! Some folks boast of quail on toast / Because they think it's toney; / But I'm content to owe my rent / And live on abalone" -- Sterling's 'Abalone Song'

Here is a sample of George Sterling's poetry, which is scintillating and vivid:

Within a porphyry crypt the murderous light

Of garnet-crusted lamps whereunder sit

Perturbéd men that tremble at a sound,

And ponder words on ghastly vellum writ,

In vipers' blood, to whispers from the night—

Infernal rubrics, sung to Satan's might,

Or chaunted to the Dragon in his gyre.

That is a small section but already bubbles and oozes with magic! You can read the rest here. Much of the poem surrounds the imaginations of someone, or their day-dreams, in the form of Fancy; an oil slick turns into a grand adventure with Merlin and potions and monsters and magic happenings.

Living on his art colony, George Sterling was a constant source of gossip for the local papers. There was intrigue, sex, death. As per Poetry Magazine: "Death was a common topic, with persistent talk of a suicide pact involving vials of cyanide."

By the end of his life, George Sterling lost his wife and committed suicide as a result. But we must remember him for his bright poetry and lines that still shine through to this day. Not only did he inspire a generation of weird writers, he also helped create a distinct poetic voice in America, which was previously dominated by the likes of Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, and even Melville.

Sometimes, his poems and life dipped into the dark and the macabre. But his talents exist beyond this biographical information, beyond the tragedy of his life, beyond the gossip and controversies.

Although known for sensational content and shocking gossip in his day, George Sterling's poetry survives as a testament to beauty and verse!