The Reverend Ezekiel Whitlock and Captain Coffin find Noella frozen in a block of ice. (Scene from THE SNOW WITCH, performed 1998.)

Marionettes watching a shadow puppet play! (Scene from THE SNOW WITCH, performed 1998.)

Attack of the mutant carnivorous penguins! (Scene from THE SNOW WITCH, performed 1998.)

Two marionettes in a boat. (From THE SNOW WITCH, performed in 1998.)

If anyone has read my new alliterative verse collection, would you consider leaving a quick review or at least giving it some stars? My gratitude knows no bounds! www.amazon.com/Told-Firelig...

william balfour ker -- just posting this for no reason

18th-century highwayman Sixteen String Jack was so popular he entertained seven women at a farewell dinner before his execution. In a specially made pea-green suit adorned with a large nosegay, he enjoyed cheerful banter with the hangman and the crowd, then danced a jig before being publicly hanged.

Arrowyn stumbled on this post on Threads about our marionette show last night. We're the new face of Portland!

Jack rests his weary bones, a temporary reprieve from his eternal wandering.

Jack and a strange creature from the ocean's black abyss...

Jack Neepe, Esq., at your service. Come follow my flickering light into outer darkness for all eternity...

Ah ha! My mate Jesse Kaszniak sent me some photos of last night's poetry reading and marionette show, JACK AND THE GREEN ETTIN, a retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Last night's poetry reading and marionette phantasmagoria was a resounding success! We had a full and very enthusiastic house. I pray some photos will surface. Many thanks to my tremendously talented puppeteers @niyyahwrites.bsky.social & Arrowyn Craban Lauer (pictured here) and Paris Weslyn Meyers.

Jack Neepe summons you to the Rose City Book Pub in Portland on Halloween at 8 p.m. for a phantasmagorical evening of spooky poetry and macabre marionettes. You disregard his invocation at the risk of wandering in darkness for ALL ETERNITY!!! @johnshirley2024.bsky.social

Jack is looking jolly this year! That's because he knows he'll be reaping a good harvest of souls to send to HELL...

The sacred neep is ready to carve. I conjure thee, Jack!

Reminder to Portlanders to come to the puppet phantasmagoria on Halloween night: a spooky poetry reading followed by a pagan retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by means of marionettes. What better way to celebrate Samhain? (At the Rose City Book Pub, Portland, Oct. 31st, 8 p.m.)

Rainbow! This picture doesn't do it justice. It looked huge and unbelievably close. Bifröst was near.

Pet peeve: whence means 'from where'. You need only say 'whence'. 'From whence' is redundant, but it's such an old and common misuse, it's basically accepted at this point.

Nursery rhymes that go hard.

Mr. Scratch adjures you to come to the Rose City Book Pub in Portland this Halloween, and be regaled by spooky poetry read by @johnshirley2024.bsky.social and Adam Bolivar, followed by a diabolical marionette show, JACK AND THE GREEN ETTIN, a pagan retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight...

In honour of Oscar Wilde's birthday, here is a picture of me doing my best impression of him. Alas, I am the one ageing, not the portrait...

Inspired by the onset of the spooky season, I composed a new ballad about a man who follows Jack's lantern to the twilit land, where time moves differently and he doesn't return for a hundred years. The poem is, of course, autobiographical. (Illustration by Cecily Peele, 1939.)

O, the infinite sadness of it all!

Name known to be a pseudonym. Education privileged. Justice neatly executed. Nothing sordid, vulgar or plebeian. Deserving cases preferred. Police no object. Specialist in fairy stories.

Portlanders! This Halloween, take a break from the ceaseless warfare 😉 and hearken to macabre verse read by legendary author John Shirley @johnshirley2024.bsky.social and myself, followed by a marionette retelling of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. At the Rose City Book Pub, Fri. Oct. 31st, 8 p.m.

This is an unheard-of price for an academic book. A must for any lover of medievalist poetry. (Plus one of my own poems is in it!) How can you resist...? www.bloomsbury.com/us/speculati...

Me reading at the alliterative verse conference in Norwich earlier this month and a group photo of all the attendees.

Some more cards from my tarot deck. The "skull and roses" image I used for the Death card, though mostly known now because its association with the Grateful Dead, comes from the Edward Sullivan illustrations for the Rubaiyat.

Messing around with a deck of tarots cards I created years ago. Probably the most disciplined thing I've ever done: I tasked myself to make one card a day for 78 days. The Magician is a bit of a self-portrait.

Would you care for some dinner rolls before your eternal punishment?

I am pleased to report that my article “Discoveries in Darkest Devon” has been accepted for the LOVECRAFT ANNUAL: a bone-chilling account of Mutartis Boswell's and my expedition into the eldritch hinterlands of Devon to unearth the hitherto-undiscovered graves of H.P. Lovecraft’s English family.

Graffiti in the church Mutartis Boswell and I visited in search of Lovecraft's ancestors' graves. One is especially interesting--reminds me of the Cerne Abbas Giant. The article says it is likely a figure from folklore. Maybe it's Jack! devonhistoricgraffiti.org.uk/broadhempsto...

#24 in Medieval Literature! Watch your back, Piers Plowman.😆

Portlanders! On Saturday at 1 pm, I shall be reading poems from my new alliterative verse collection as part of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, alongside the illustrious authors John Shirley @johnshirley2024.bsky.social and Garrett Cook. Come one, come all! hplfilmfestival.com/hplfilmfesti...

Those who delight in tales of the old Northern gods Wóden, Thunor, Fríg and Lúca will surely crave this book of poems, meticulously wrought in accordance to the strictures of alliterative verse once faithfully heeded by scop and skald. www.jackanapespress.com/product/told...

A lovely review of my new alliterative verse collection has appeared in Cemetery Dance! www.cemeterydance.com/extras/revie...

Lychgate to churchyard, Woodland, Devon.

Nunney Castle with moat. Apparently not technically a castle but a crenellated keep. Still very impressive!

In the church in Mells. David playing his harp to soothe the evil spirit afflicting King Saul.

Mells Manor. According to legend, the Abbot of Glastonbury sent his steward Thomas Horner with a Christmas pie containing the deeds of a dozen manors to give to King Henry VIII. Horner opened the pie and took one of the manors for himself--a supposed origin on the nursery rhyme 'Little Jack Horner'.

Another discovery! The church is Broadhempston, the ancestral village of the Lovecrafts, has a devil's door. This very door is the one used for the example photo for the Wikipedia article. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%2...

More pictures from St. John's Church in Frome.

Cadaver effigy of Sir William Weston in St. John's Church, Frome.

The vinegar stone in Selwood Forest, near Frome. During the plague it was with vinegar and people would leave money in it to pay for food left for them. The people who left the food would collect the money later, which was disinfected by the vinegar.

I found him! Joshua Lovecraft (1739-1811) was the nephew of Joseph Lovecraft, HPL's gr-gr-gr-grandfather. He was also proprietor of the Church House Inn, now the Monk's Retreat in Broadhempston, We tried to go in for a pint but it was closed. Little did we know it was once owned by a Lovecraft!

A Bronze Age barrow called Jack's Castle near Frome, Somerset! (Thanks to Mutartis Boswell for showing me.)

Mutartis Boswell was kind enough to drive to the remote village of Woodland, Devon, where H. P. Lovecraft's grandparents emigrated from. With the help of a mysterious caretaker who lent us chalk, we found HPL's great-great-grandparents Richard and Elizabeth Full.

The church my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents belonged to. I was hoping to visit their graves, but they appear to have built over the churchyard, the cheeky devils!

Hello!