Back in 2020, I created a list of thirteen spooky poems perfect for reading in October. This article was republished the following year, and the comment sections of both articles yielded many exciting poems worthy of their own list. As Halloween draws near once again, I thought I would create a follow-up list of thirteen more sinister poems for the reader seeking to set the mood. So settle down with a mug of pumpkin spice, and let’s get ready to summon the spirit of the season…
“October Afternoon”– Ruth Lechlitner
Now the blue aster learns to rise and run
Ghost-pale before her little day is lost…
First on the list, a scene-setting poem from 1929, laden with chilly October imagery. If you aren’t wrapped up in a chunky-knit cardigan when you pick this poem up, you’ll be reaching for one by the end of it.
“Ash” – Tracy K. Smith
Strange house we must keep and fill.
House that eats and pleads and kills.
House on legs. House on fire. House infested
With desire…
This satisfyingly rhythmic poem draws a vivid portrait of a haunted house, which doesn’t really understand that it is not a person. As I’ve discussed in my previous article, Becoming the Thing That Haunts the House, the relationship between haunted house and occupant in horror is an intricate and often blurred one; Smith captures this blurring expertly. Reading this poem is sure to remind you of your favourite haunted house story.
Goblin Market – Christina Rossetti
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
This Victorian narrative poem was recommended in the 2021 comment section of my previous list. It tells the story of sisters Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted into danger by the alluring fruits sold by ‘goblin men’—fruits which, when consumed, cause the consumer to waste away, satisfied by nothing else. (Important to note here is that some critics have found antisemitic undertones in their readings of this poem. This is something to be mindful of when forming your own opinion.)
“Carving the Jacks” – Margaret Atwood
They arrive every year,
these hollowed-out light-headed ones,
on our doorsteps, our porches,
with their minds full of nothing
but flame…
This compelling poem about jack-o’-lanterns can be found in Atwood’s collection Dearly, first published in November 2020, alongside a wide range of other exciting and often gut-wrenching poems. It offers a wistful look at the rituals of Halloween.
“Poem 670” – Emily Dickinson
One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted —
One need not be a House —
The Brain has Corridors — surpassing
Material Place …
Another poem recommended in the comment section of the previous piece, Dickinson’s Poem 670 explores the mind as a location prime for horror. The first stanza eerily captures the feeling of paranoia that creeps in on a late night after having heard a scary story—was that a creak on the stairs or your imagination? You feel watched, but is something really watching you, or is your mind playing tricks?
“All Hallows” – Louise Glück
This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment…
This poem was recommended twice in the comment sections of my last poem list, and with good reason. Named for the season, it paints a chill and foreboding October landscape, culminating with an ominous parting line.
“The Haunted Well” – Amanda Benjamin Hall
Here where the well lies hidden,
Rheumatic apple trees
Still stand as they were bidden,
With crooked arms and knees…
There’s something about a poem composed of rhyming couplets which lends itself to the haunting season. This poem, published in 1923, tells the tale of a ghost who lurks in the depths of a well. (I am reminded of the painting, Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind…)
“Young Witches” – Marian Thanhouser
…Young witches have strange eyes
As spring twilight, and glances wise…
Published in 1927, this poem may lend you some inspiration for an elegant and eerie Halloween costume. The witches evoked in the verse are mysterious, inscrutable, but not expressly malicious; Thanhouser writes them as if from direct observation, with her eye to the keyhole of another world.
“Ghost” – Jean Malley
I am a ghost. My breath blew hard and cold
But only in the past, for now exists
A play upon the stage…
From witches to ghosts, we look now at Jean Malley’s poem from 1970, which explores a spectral loneliness. There are a myriad of ways in which this poem can be read: is it a metaphor for individual loneliness—the feeling of being a ghost while still alive—or is it the dictation of a literal ghost, haunting, perhaps, a theatre? It’s up to you.
“Phonograph” – Sandy Florian
…Or. You mimic the melody and its blank harmony. You
accompany the symphony with a tenor of all tomorrows. While I, lost in the
Maze of Mirrors, ask you to tell me again the story…
Perhaps an unexpected candidate for this list, I chose Phonograph because of the uniquely eerie lens through which it examines its subject. An archaic recording device, with its wax cylinders and hissing audio quality, we encounter phonographs most frequently now in the horror genre—think of Jack Seward’s audio diary in Dracula, or the warning messages left for Edith in Crimson Peak.
“Calling the dead” – Jennifer Wong
On certain nights they come back,
ghost story fragments lodged in my head
from midnight taxi rides. Almost always
a woman in a red dress, hollow laughter
and a ball bouncing in a playground…
With its vivid imagery, this poem conjures images reminiscent of playground horror; the kinds of stories you might have whispered among friends at a sleepover, all of you shivering with terror and delight. At the same time, it speaks to wider social and cultural fears, which are shared by whole communities but kept private in each person’s head.
“October Cobwebs” – Sandra M. Gilbert
screen the garden in the late
heat, the lowering
light…
Another atmospheric autumn poem, October Cobwebs takes you on a stroll through a garden lacy with the elegant work of spiders. (Hopefully it’ll remind you to watch where you’re walking, so that you don’t walk straight through one!)
“Trick or Treat” – Nancy Price
The ghost is a torn sheet,
the skeleton’s suit came from a rack in a store
the witch is flameproof, but who knows
what dark streets they have taken here?
Our final poem looks playfully at the tradition of dressing up in costume and strolling the neighbourhood at Halloween. There is a sense of paranoia that accompanies the festivities each year—the fear that things might not be as harmless as they seem—and Price plays with that fear, though the overall tone of the poem is as jovial as trick-or-treating itself.
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If you have any favourite Halloween poems, or thoughts you’d like to share about these ones, feel free to drop them in the comments below! I wish you all a very happy Halloween.
Holly Kybett Smith is a writer based in the south of England, where she is currently studying for her MA in Victorian Gothic. A keen lover of historical and speculative fiction, she specialises in all things dark, whimsical and weird. Her work has been featured in Issue #2 of the New Gothic Review.
