Requiem for a Siren: Women Poets of the Pulps

Pulp magazines saw their heyday from the 1920s through the 1950s, appealing to an audience that included men and women: A quarter of the readers of Weird Tales were women. Across its 30-year publishing history, a third of its writers were women, too. Many of those names are lost today, and those pieces have been forgotten—until now. 

Requiem for a Siren is the first anthology devoted to the women poets of the pulps. These 101 poems by 47 women first appeared in magazines like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories. The mothers and godmothers of the genre, these writers penned striking lyrics of death, monsters, ghosts, and nightmares. You may recognize some of the names—Mary Elizabeth Counselmen, Dorothy Quick, and Leah Bodine Drake are three of the more well-known included here. Hopefully, you'll discover some new-to-you favorites, too, as you page through these poems with your hot uhallowed lust for beauty. Happy haunting.

"A wondrous and important deep dive into pre-1960s speculative poetry that transports readers to the strangest corners of space, nature, and dreams." —Rhysling Award Winner Angela Liu

"This book is a beacon in the dark, signaling students of the horror and science-fiction genres to 'come home.' These women are fully resurrected, stepping proudly into their roles as the foremothers of speculative poetry, realizing our fears as they are and continue to be."  —Grace R. Reynolds, Elgin-Award nominated author of The Lies We Weave