When we were curating the first issue of Black Works, we received a short story submission from LindaAnn LoSchiavo. That story, A Christmas Presence, made it into the issue. Since then we have published other work by Ms. LoSchiavo and pay attention to the progress of her writing career.
Which brings us to this review. The collection by Ms. LoSchiavo is titled A Route Obscure and Lonely (December 2019) and is a book of poetry using the first line of Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream-Land as the title. And, in this case, the title fits both with regard to the imagery of the poems as well as the tribute to the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
This is a modern gothic. But it is also has elements of the romantic leading via innuendo into the borderlands of the erotic. It also has features of the fairy tale and even dares to touch upon magical realism. In the end, it is all of these and more. There are “phantom shapes” and “infernal company,” ghosts, fallen angels, mer-men, and manifestations brought on by memories. This collection reminds us of our bad dreams, our good dreams, and our nightmares and throws in a little humor for good measure.
The collection is short but not unusually so for a book of poetry. As a result, the reader is left with a feeling at once of being sated but still feeling the vague emptiness and longing left over after a lost love. And that brings us right back to the obscure loneliness of the title.
This collection is well worth the read.
A Route Obscure and Lonely published by Wapshott Press ($7.50 on Amazon.com).