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Creatures Among Us

The new prose poetry collection by Rebecca Lilly

Praise for Creatures Among Us:

Creatures Among Us turns loose the daredevil imagination and atmospheric chills I’ve always hoped for in poetry but rarely encounter. Whether we’re whispered to by water goddesses, peeping into secret rooms of funeral parlors through the lens of the Rosicrucians, or breathed on in a closet by a reaper who suggests Halloween dress-up parties, Rebecca Lilly’s splendid collection will hold readers spellbound.
— MATT SCHUMACHER, editor of Phantom Drift

Dark and imaginative, Rebecca Lilly’s Creatures Among Us takes time to fully unearth, and so it should not be approached lightly. Switch off electronic devices, light a black candle and allow yourself to sink, delicately, into its arcane depths as though it were a hot spring or – perhaps more fittingly – an open grave.
— TIMOTHY GRAYSON, poet in residence, Belvoir Castle

In Creatures Among Us Rebecca Lilly has created a thrilling world of haunted landscapes, shadow-shifting, graveyards, and eerie moonlight. In blocks of words that seem to scroll down screens we hear voices of the dead, alter-egos, doppelgangers, in monologues and dialogues, in magical combinations of fairy tale, philosophy, and dramas of cryptic mythology. With characters like Lucifer, The Reaper, shamans, wizards, oracles, and gravediggers, we are drawn into delightful dreams inhabited by glow-worms, ghosts, funeral directors, contending with insomnia and mystery. You have not read anything quite like these poems, which carry the reader away on a voyage of surprise and wonder, and you will never forget them.
— ROBERT MORGAN, author of Dark Energy

A dizzying journey through otherworldly realms with a shape-shifting narrator at the helm. Through dream sequences and fantastical characters, Rebecca Lilly explores timely topics in the age of social media: the identities we assign ourselves, and the fear of losing authentic connections with others.
— ANNE JAMES, founding editor, Zymbol

“A ghost wrote this poem,” writes Rebecca Lilly in Creatures Among Us. That’s one many-genred apparition! It’s spooky with poem-energy, dialogue-sass, micro-fiction-enigma, and the altered states of fable. Together, they present a world that is strangely and ineluctably immediate. Wizards, oracles, fakirs, sorcerers, and Presbyterians are walkabout citizens, offering comments and koans. Omens, glyphs, witchcraft, casino pamphlets, and hermetic script are the chirography of this dimension, which shimmers all around us – in classrooms, funeral parlors, sanatariums, woodsy hideouts, Malibu castles, and comfortable beds. “’Your hands grasp the bowl of an abyss,’” says one creature, an “Elder.” Reading Creatures Among Us, I felt I was grasping a beautifully crafted figure of what pulses within and just beyond words. I join the creatures who “raise our hats to the phantoms” of this unique parade.
— PHILIP BRADY, author of To Banquet with the Ethiopians

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