Some poems are best heard after dark. Step into the candlelit world of Midnight Poetry: A Brambletale Press Anthology, where falling leaves whisper, unseen wings stir, and a knock at the door might deserve a moment’s hesitation. Curated by Philip Graham, this collection brings together classic verse by Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Shakespeare, and other remarkable voices with a gift for the wonderfully strange.

Hear the haunting refrain of Poe’s The Raven, encounter the mysterious visitor in Mary Elizabeth Coleridge’s The Witch, and venture into the unsettling twilight of H. P. Lovecraft’s Hallowe’en in a Suburb. The journey begins in the autumn glow of Frances Cornford’s Autumn Evening and Sarojini Naidu’s Autumn Song, then leads toward the spectral chill of Thomas Lovell Beddoes’ The Phantom-Wooer. Along the way, Dora Sigerson Shorter’s Beware offers a warning, while Dorothy Good, an original poem by Philip Graham, adds a new voice to this gathering of old spirits.

Selected for listeners ages 8-12 and families who enjoy a delicious shiver, these poems reveal how rhythm, language, and imagination can turn an ordinary evening into something altogether peculiar. Some are wistful. Some are wicked. Others may leave you listening a little more closely to the quiet. Settle in for a celebration of Halloween, autumn, and the enduring pleasure of a spooky tale told aloud. Leave a light on. Dead poets have plenty to say.