Starting with the title, The Hand That Wounds is a line from Cowen's brilliant poem, "The Homilies of Edward Prendick", the English gentleman who was shipwrecked and winds up on the Island of Dr. Moreau. "His is the House of Pain/ His is the Hand that Wounds". It's just one of a variety of exceptional dark poems you won't want to miss!

In The Dystopian Cantos, hunger is the subject of a 20 verse look at a gritty, but possible, tomorrow when we discover "The gods of power/dying with the last technician ..." but the struggle to survive continues. Further on, be chilled by lines like "the door to all of that is closed leaving me to muse memories/ from scraps of you/in my file" (from the door)

Another kind of chill emanates from lines in The High Woman of Lowland Morgue: "When the beauty inside is dark/ What remains is but the remains/ Is there pleasure from this preservation/ The cold abeyance of decay/ Blue lips closed tightly /Or is she now as in life/ The untouchable virtue /Eyes unfocused and dispassionate"

Cowen is a master of free verse, at times drawing fantastical parallels to the portents of our era; other times, illustrating the dark dimensions of the human psyche. -Marge Simon, Multiple Stoker Winner