Lee Murray’s Lessons in Poetry

13 Questions with Lee Murray

Lee Murray is an accomplished poet, author, editor, and essayist. HOWL Society is honored to feature her in celebration of National Poetry Month. She is one of five 2024 Bram Stoker Finalists for Superior Achievement in Poetry for her book, Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud. We discuss her love of gothic horror, sneaking poetry into short stories, finding a supportive community of women horror poets, her favorite poem structures, and her belief that everyone has what it takes to write a poem (and a bonus poetry lesson, as well!)

Read on to the and of the interview, where we include the link to an exclusive excerpt from Lee’s Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud.

1. What first got you into horror?

When I jumped into full-time writing in my forties, when I decided to make it my career, I was seduced by that old adage ‘write what you know.’ I mistook that to mean that, as a woman, I should ‘write contemporary women’s fiction.’ which I duly did—penning a marathoning rom-com about cupcakes and wardrobe malfunctions—only to find it wasn’t really for me.

It wasn’t a wasted exercise: it was tremendous fun, more like play than work, and I learned a lot about the craft of writing, but I also discovered that I wanted to explore the things that mattered to me, the crippling haunting fears that make my breath hitch and my palms sweat—and that epiphany led me to horror.

2. What are some of your favorite horror tropes? Favorite horror movies?

My favourite horror tropes are the ones that have been subverted. Distorted. Turned on their head. For example, I love a haunting gothic horror, and especially those tales with twists on the woman-in-the attic trope, where the downtrodden turn the tables on their oppressors. Those are always delightfully satisfying. 

A little secret about me and horror films: they terrify me.

A little secret about me and horror films: they terrify me. While I can dissociate myself from a story or poem in a book simply by putting the book down, harrowing films keep me awake at night, or if I fall asleep, I suffer nightmares and night terrors. The music, the lighting, the screams… I watched the 1975 portemanteau film Trilogy of Terror—you know the one: with Richard Matheson’s tale of the woman terrorized by a Zuni fetish doll in her apartment—while I was alone one night in my early teens, and it still haunts my dreams nearly four decades later. More recently, since co-writing the Kiwi horror-comedy feature Grafted (currently showing on Shudder), I’ve had no choice but to watch more horror movies, and in particular offbeat social commentary horror such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Julia Ducournau’s Titane, basically hardening myself up in order to inform my script-writing practice

An early writing mentor told me that I wasn’t a poet and that I should stick to prose, and, sadly, I took that on board.

3. What inspired you to pursue horror poetry? How has your poetic style evolved over time? Have you always written horror poetry or have you delved into other genres?

Here is where I admit that although I have always written poetry, and even had some work published, it is only very recently, in the past few years, that I have even considered myself a poet. An early writing mentor told me that I wasn’t a poet and that I should stick to prose, and, sadly, I took that on board. Only, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with my prose. I always wanted to make my stories better, tighter, more evocative. All the things that poets seemed to achieve so effortlessly. So, throughout my career, whenever opportunities arose to develop my skills, I would seek out poetry workshops and webinars as a way to improve my prose.

From there, I started to sneak poetry techniques into my short stories. I’d slip in a poem here or there: haiku for an alien’s speech, a sonnet as a prophecy, or a ballad as a plot device. And then, when I got away with those little pebbles, I started substituting entire short story commissions with prose-poetry narratives of several thousand words. Somehow, I got those to fly, too.

I could not have achieved it without the support of open-minded, innovative editors and publishers who are not afraid to champion something out-of-the-box.

Nowadays, I tend to squeeze poetry into almost everything: essays, stories, memoir, keynotes. Then, with my Bram Stoker Award-nominated prose-poetry work Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud, I attempted an even longer form: a text which can be considered a novel-in-verse, or perhaps a series of interconnected haibun. In some ways, it is my own form. A strange little beast. I wasn’t sure where I might place it, but selectors at the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship (now Ireland, Wilson, Sargeson) saw the merit in an early excerpt and supported its development. Later, I was lucky enough to win the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize ‘for unique and original vision’ for its publication. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been allowed to carry poetry into my prose work in this way. Certainly, it is rare. One thing I know: I could not have achieved it without the support of open-minded, innovative editors and publishers who are not afraid to champion something out-of-the-box. 

Poetry is accessible to everyone. We just have to let the words out…

5. What do you wish more people knew about horror poetry?

Here is an excerpt from my judging notes which prefaced the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase, Vol IX, edited by Angela Yuriko Smith, providing some insight into my feelings about the purpose of horror poetry: 

The thing is, we don’t have to be accomplished poets to save ourselves. Poetry is accessible to everyone. We just have to let the words out…

It’s a community that has always had to break down barriers. But it’s also a community that pulls out a chair, and says, “We see you. You’re one of us. Welcome. We’re listening. Tell us what you have to say.”

6. What challenges have you faced as a poet, specifically as a woman in the horror genre?

As I see it, the biggest challenges for poets are:

• Digging deep to tell the hardest stories.
• Having the courage to put those hard stories out there.
• Finding suitable venues for that work.
• Getting paid. 
• Being read.
• [Also, not having our work stolen for AI-training]

On the other hand, being a woman poet in the horror genre is to be part of a community that is used to being maligned for daring to be transgressive and write horror, that is willing to address the hard topics that take courage and vulnerability to write, things that make us all shake with fear. It’s a community that has always had to break down barriers. But it’s also a community that pulls out a chair, and says, “We see you. You’re one of us. Welcome. We’re listening. Tell us what you have to say.” The same challenges that I have listed above apply, but when you have a supportive community of women horror poets about you, encouraging you, creating opportunities, and signal boosting your work, those are powerful motivators. The challenge becomes, how to open the door for more voices, more perspectives, and more possibilities for dialogue.

The recurring lines of the pantoum make it the perfect structure for revealing the cycles of hurt and horror imposed on certain groups.

7. What is your preferred structure of a poem? How does horror influence structure?

In terms of structure, my poetry tastes are eclectic, including free verse, narrative prose-poetry, as well as more formal structures. Among my favourite poetry forms are structures that create meaning and intensity through repetition, such as terzanelles and pantoums.

Here is an example of a terzanelle of mine, which first appeared in the collaborative poetry collection Tortured Willows (with Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith & Geneve Flynn), and which became the launching point, a prologue of sorts, for Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud:

The Malay pantoum is another favourite form. It consists of linked quatrains in an a-b-a-b rhyme scheme, where the second and fourth lines recur as the first and third lines in the following quatrain. And each quatrain offers up a new second rhyme, following a b-c-b-c, c-d-c-d pattern. The final stanza typically conforms to a x-a-x-a pattern, with the first line also representing the final line of the poem, thus reinforcing the cyclical nature of the form, and echoing the poem’s overall theme. It sounds complicated, but in fact it is unassuming and elegant.

Modern versions of the pantoum don’t necessarily follow a rhyme scheme at all, poets relying solely on the recurring lines to create resonance. It’s the repetition which, in my view, lends the form its power—even where the lines themselves are written in simple prose. This is because sometimes, when delivered a second time, there is a subtle shift in meaning afforded by the line’s placement, or as a result of its punctuation, or simply because of the added emphasis. In The Making of a Poem, authors Strand and Boland explain how, in revisiting certain lines, “the reader takes four steps forward, then two back.” They claim this makes the pantoum a “perfect form for the evocation of a past time.”

Perhaps this answers the second part of your question about how horror influences structure. The recurring lines of the pantoum make it the perfect structure for revealing the cycles of hurt and horror imposed on certain groups. Consider the way the erasure (and blatant murder) of Asian women and girls over generations are highlighted in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s shockingly revelatory “Pantoun for Chinese Women” which was first published in No Man’s Grove, and Other Poems (1985). A Malaysian-born American poet, Lim’s poem is inspired by a newspaper article which she cites as the prelude to her work: “At present, the phenomena of butchering, drowning, and leaving to die female infants have been very serious. The People’s Daily, Peking, March 3rd, 1983.” The newspaper report is shocking enough, but Lim’s poem, with its unflinching repetition and carefully selected rhymes, is nothing less than harrowing. The last two stanzas of the poem appear below, and you can clearly see the power of the narrative, expressed firstly in the newspaper, and then repeated in these (excerpted) lines. The full text of the work is available online HERE.

My own work, Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud, addresses similar themes, exploring Chinese women’s lives in New Zealand through the lens of the supernatural fox spirit, the húli jīng, as she strives to ascend to the celestial heavens. In this text, I have used a prose-poetry form, where repetition plays a significant role. As well as using recurring ideas, words, or sounds, sometimes I repeat certain lines or parts of lines, so they appear like a refrain taken up throughout the narrative.

Spaced over a poem of several thousand words, the repeated description of the husband in this manner reveals the tedium and loneliness of the woman’s existence: 

• “Your days are as brown as your husband’s tobacco, as brown as his hat, as brown as the floorboards.”

Hmm. Using repetition to show tedium might not have been the best example! In any case, when employed in different ways, in a poet’s hands, repetition can be a powerful device. 

Anything that matters can be revealed as a poem

8. Can you tell us what role poetry has played in your life thus far?

When facilitating workshops, I often ask what poetry is, what role it plays, and what it means to us, and the answers are inevitably varied and surprising. [One of my all-time favourite answers was from a participant who said writing poetry and being a poet was a ‘poetic FU’ to the teacher who told her she would never amount to anything and certainly not a writer.]

Anything that matters can be revealed as a poem, the feelings captured on the page to revisit as celebration and also as a means of healing. It’s making sense of things, and also just holding space for the things we cannot make sense of. It’s a point of connection. A hello and a goodbye, and also a conversation and a way forward. I’m thinking now of the poem-eulogy I wrote for my grandmother’s funeral, read, and later buried with her. The poem for my dad, who died in the pandemic when there were no funerals. The poetry ‘pebbling’ between my daughter and myself: sometimes our own poems, other times poems we’ve stumbled across that spoke to us in the moment—reflections which allow us to know one another. Poems bear witness to all of these moments. 

9. Can you tell us what role poetry has played in your life thus far?

Oh dear. The list is too long. Here is an abbreviated version…

Horror poets: Donna Lynch, Stephanie Wytovich, Sara Tantlinger, LE Daniels, Sumiko Saulson, Marge Simon and Bruce Boston, Alexandro Manzetti, Cindy O’Quinn and Stephanie Ellis, and the ineffable Linda D. Addison. 

Asian horror poets: Geneve Flynn, Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng, Ai Jiang. 

Everyone’s favourites: Mary Oliver, Marge Piercy, Emily Dickinson

Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand poets: Tusiata Avia, Donna McLeod, John Adams, Madeleine Slavick, Tim Jones, Renee Liang, Chris Tse, Celine Murray. 

One of my favourite poems is “Le Pont Mirabeau” by Appollinaire. I lived in France for seven years in the 90s, and during that time, the RATP (the Paris métro organisation) published a book of classic poems (mostly by French poets, but also some international voices), which appeared on posters on the trains for people to enjoy during their commute to and from work. The poem resonated for me, living so far from home, and more than once I stood on that very bridge (le Pont Mirabeau), watching the water pass by below me and wondering what my loved ones were doing across the other side of the world. I still have the little book, right here beside me on my bookshelf, and it remains well-thumbed. 

Another more recent favourite is “When the Girls Begin to Fall” by my colleague Geneve Flynn. Another pantoum, it is possibly one of the most devastating poems on Asian women’s generational trauma that I have ever read. The full poem appears in Tortured Willows, but I include an excerpt here with permission from the poet:

10. Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? When do you feel like a poem is complete?

My writing process is messy and haphazard. I think with poetry, including prose poetry, I am more likely to allow myself to play fast and loose with language conventions. To run away with rhythm and repetition. Only afterwards will I trim and tighten and cull. It’s like the rules for jewellery that my grandmother taught me: first, you put on the pieces that work well with your outfit, then you must take off at least one item, and if you can, remove one more item, until you have pared away everything superfluous, everything that is gaudy and garish, leaving you with a ‘look’ that is elegant and understated. Even so, New Zealand’s poet laureate, Chris Tse, describes Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud as ‘dense’ and ‘full-bodied,’ perhaps as much for its deep cultural and sociopolitical themes as its long-form narrative approach. 

When is a poem complete? This is such a difficult question to answer! Perhaps a poem is ‘complete’ when the poet’s meaning is acknowledged in the reader (even when that reader is oneself).

I do believe everyone has what it takes to create a poem.

11. What do you wish you knew when first starting out?

After the success of our Black Cranes anthology, when my horror sisters and I were casting about for ways to deepen and expand that important conversation, a few of us were toying with the possibility of working on a collaborative poetry collection. Christina Sng and Angela Yuriko Smith were excited, while Geneve Flynn and I protested that we knew nothing about poetry. Geneve had never written anything more than a limerick! But experienced poets Angela and Christina wouldn’t hear it. “We’re ALL poets,” Sng said. Her belief in us was the turning point. And while I’m not sure I agree with that old saying that everyone has a book in them, I do believe everyone has what it takes to create a poem. It can be as tiny as a single line. And when you have written a poem—and it doesn’t even have to be a good poem—then you are a poet. And just like that, you’re on the way. 

12, Any advice for writers attempting to get into writing poetry?

Here’s a tip from my Tortured Willows colleague Angela Yuriko Smith, who says that, for newbies, experimenting with poetry forms offers a tried-and-true framework on which to hang your ideas. It’s not always necessary to struggle with a complicated rhyme scheme, either. If you can tap out the rhythm to your favourite classical poem—something like Paterson’s “The Man from Snowy River” or Poe’s “Annabel Lee” or Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”—then you can conjure a poem to fit that schema. 

13, Any upcoming releases and activities you’d like to talk about?

Thank you for asking. I’m excited to say I have another poetry collaboration coming from an innovative U.S. press, this time with an American poet whom I respect and adore. I’m not allowed to officially announce it yet, except to say that it’s expected to release in 2026 for International Women’s Day on March 8th (which might give you some notion of the theme!).

Also coming is This Way Lies Madness (co-edited with Dave Jeffery), an anthology of short stories and poems which prove that horror can portray madness without being demonising and dehumanising. Featuring some of the world’s best horror writers alongside some fresh voices, the anthology releases from Flame Tree Press in October. I’ve been busy with a host of community projects, too, including judging this year’s World Fantasy Awards, the New Zealand Poetry Society’s international poetry prize (enter HERE!), and New Zealand’s Te Tauihu short story awards, among others. I’m also proud to be a founding member of Te Pae Tawhiti (Distant Horizons) Awards, a new international literary award celebrating excellence in speculative fiction by Aotearoa-New Zealand and Pasifika creatives, which will open for its inaugural submissions later this year.

Lee Murray ONZM is a multi-award-winning author-editor, essayist, poet, and screenwriter from Aotearoa-New Zealand. A USA Today bestselling author, Shirley Jackson and five-time Bram Stoker Awards® winner, she is a New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award-winner for Literary Achievement in Fiction. Read more at https://www.leemurray.info/

Click here for an exclusive excerpt from Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray.

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