{"id":5172,"date":"2026-01-12T12:18:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/?p=5172"},"modified":"2026-01-12T12:26:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:26:00","slug":"vampires-vs-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/2026\/01\/vampires-vs-pirates.html\/","title":{"rendered":"Vampires vs. Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\nFrom the \u2018Foreword\u2019 to\u00a0Ten Poets Spend the Night at a Vampire\u2019s Castle<\/a><\/em>:\r\n
A tall figure descends the stairs at the centre of the great hall. He is the very picture of calculated languor and boredom, though passion burns in the depths of his bright, dissimilar eyes. He wears a frock coat like a second skin. His open shirt collar erupts from it like the spathe of an arum lily. He is himself peculiarly pale \u2013 not the pallor of death, but that of a beautiful alabaster vase. There are fine blue veins upon his features. He is possessed of a boldly prominent brow and delicately cut nose. The hairline recedes around the temples, but the hair itself is dark and thickly curled. The smile strikes at you like a knife \u2013 it is contemptuous, almost vindictive.\r\n\r\nVampire? Or poet?<\/blockquote>\r\nAnd from the \u2018Cast Off\u2019 of\u00a0Ten Poets Prowl the Seas in Search of Plunder<\/a><\/em>:\r\n
The last poem o\u2019 this here book, Jim-Lad Womack\u2019s \u2018Admire Devaluates Scavenger (6, 2, 9, 8)\u2019, finds sixteenth-century Spanish writer Cervantes poised o\u2019er \u2018is most famous novel,\u00a0Don Quixote<\/em>, wonderin\u2019 \u2018ow it be that such a blood-soaked thief an\u2019 murderer as the pirate Blackbeard e\u2019er came to be considered as loveable rogue.\r\n\r\nIndeed, mateys, piracy be a topic that raises somethin\u2019 of a double quandary fer poets. On the one \u2018and, it be the stuff o\u2019 children\u2019s parties an\u2019 cheap fancy dress. Insufficient gravitas, ye might say. Pantomime patois twice as gratin\u2019 as this one here. Parrots, posturin\u2019, plastic-an\u2019-elastic eyepatches (I once worn two o\u2019 these, one on each o\u2019 me good eyes, while steerin\u2019 a canal boat, but that be a tale for another time). On the other \u2018ook, if ye lean toward \u2018istorical accuracy, all be grimness an\u2019 squalor.<\/blockquote>\r\nThese are the latest two titles in our \u201810 Poets\u2019 series, starring 20 poets we\u2019ve never published before, many of them fresh to the scene. For those unfamiliar with the series, the premise is all there in the title of each book: contributing poets adopt a persona \u2014 lusty corsair, say, or hapless prey of some blood-sucking creature \u2014 in order to explore all manner of themes through a somewhat otherworldly lens. That\u2019s it \u2014 plus a foreword\/introduction and a surprise appendix.\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re seven books into the run, and we do think they look rather good together:\r\n
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<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\nBut it\u2019s the poems, of course, which really count. Try a little spoonful of\u00a0Nikki Marrone<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018Terms and Conditions Apply\u2019, from\u00a0Vampire\u2019s Castle<\/em>:\r\n
The invitation arrived folded in midnight.\r\nNo envelope, just a note pressed to my chest:\r\nYou\u2019ve been chosen. Glow accordingly<\/em>.\r\n\r\nI must have said yes.\r\nThere\u2019s no other way to explain how I got here.\r\nThe hours between then and now were soft and slippery,\r\nlike the ones gone missing\r\nwhen you look up and realise the light has changed.\r\n\r\nNow I\u2019m seated between a duchess and a woman\r\nwho used to be an actress\r\n(though no one mentions that anymore).\r\n\r\nThe candlelight makes everything soft: the velvet walls,\r\nthe blush on their cheeks,\r\neven the wine, which tastes like memory.\r\n\r\n\u201cShe arrived last week,\u201d someone says, slicing a fig\r\nwith the edge of her fork.<\/blockquote>\r\nDelicious! You thought the poets would, in every case, find themselves alone with the vampire in question? The contents ae wilder than that. As noted in the foreword, \u201coddly enough [\u2026] this might be, as much as anything, a book of love poems.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd what about\u00a0Prowl the Seas<\/em>? Well, the idea of \u2018plunder\u2019 has been interpreted very cleverly, and while we do have a fair number of doubloon-addled ruffians aboard, there\u2019s also room for poetry that plunges into the \u2018broken, bent and battered\u2019.\u00a0Abigail Ottley<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018The Sea Always Wins, or, The Ageing Wreck Diver Speaks of the Ocean\u2019 begins as follows:\r\n

The sea is an indifferent lover<\/strong>. She may be your delight, your mistress, your beloved, but she\u2019s not the great prize you imagine. You, in your passion, your tender obsession, are smitten, held fast in her thrall. You see nothing but her beauty, her unplumbed depths, her colours endlessly shifting. But she is nothing if not sly, and her heart is full of perfidy and guile \u2026<\/blockquote><\/p>\r\nYou can read the rest of the poem for free,\u00a0on our website<\/a>. Look out for more samples from our books on this Substack in the future, as well as further insights into the pieces and the processes behind their creation. In the meantime, choose your poison:\u00a0grog from the belly of a hijacked sloop<\/a>, or\u00a0claret from the cobwebbed bottle cellar<\/a>? Order it into your local\u00a0booze-stop<\/s>\u00a0bookshop and help us stay afloat!\r\n\r\n

And if you are yourself a poet, check out our next calls for submissions<\/a> to the 10 Poets series, closing 28 February 2026!<\/h2>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the \u2018Foreword\u2019 to\u00a0Ten Poets Spend the Night at a Vampire\u2019s Castle: A tall figure descends the stairs at the centre of the great hall. He is the very picture of calculated languor and boredom, though passion burns in the depths of his bright, dissimilar eyes. He wears a frock coat like a second skin. … Continue reading “Vampires vs. Pirates”<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[384,1023],"tags":[902,1020,1024,1019],"class_list":["post-5172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-submissions","category-ten-poets","tag-call-for-submissions","tag-pirates","tag-ten-poets","tag-vampires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5172"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5250,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5172\/revisions\/5250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}