Midnight on Benefit Street

Neo-Romantic American poet Brett Rutherford spent nearly three decades in the haunted city of Providence, Rhode Island, where the sad shades of Edgar Poe and H. P. Lovecraft are omnipresent. In this 270-page collection of poems, fiction, and journal entries from 2012-2014, the author covers the gamut of his literary and musical passions: mythology, Lovecraftian horror, political satire, classical music, classic European literature from the Middle Ages through the Romantic era. Assembled as a “farewell to Rhode Island,” this volume can be seen as a woven literary memoir. The satire is rich and thick, and Lovecraft and his fans get the worst of it in narratives about a special mental hospital ward for people who think they are H. P. Lovecraft, and a remote Pacific island where “Lovecraft” tourists inhale a mystery-drug to make contact with Elder Gods. Providence’s most famous writer is also honored straight-up in tribute poems such as “The Tree at Lovecraft’s Grave” and “Midnight on Benefit Street.” There are also poems translated from Alexander Pushkin, Anna Akhmatova, Emperor Li Yu, Martial, and Hafiz.

Few poets have such a range as Rutherford, as an extinct Trilobite speaks of doomed romance, cemetery managers conspire to keep Lovecraft fans away from his grave, the Titan Prometheus argues with Zeus about whether humans deserve to survive, the Empress of Mexico tells her life-story from a Belgian madhouse, a Chinese emperor sighs over loss and forbidden love, a sinister colonial schoolhouse reveals its dark secrets, and a young Greek girl learns how to “play dead” when her mother goes on a murderous rampage.

A group of poems in honor of artist Riva Leviten (1928-2014) demonstrate the art of “ekphrasis,” basing elaborate narrative poems on single works of visual art. The author and artist, near neighbors in Providence, shared a keen sense of coincidence and dream-based creation. Two short-stories set in Providence’s historic East Side, “The Readings at Blighted Corners” and “The Specter of St. John’s Churchyard” are sure to alarm readers who have to contend with New England’s attics, basements, and shadowy churchyards.

The extensive journal postings include a harrowing section titled “The Hookah Wars, or Why I Left Providence,” an account of living in a decaying neighborhood surrounded by hookah bars, drug dealers, toxic air, noise, and violence, all this one block from an Ivy-League university. Writers and artists once flocked to Providence, but this journal reviews, cogently, and with some humor, why many have moved on.

This is the 318th publication of The Poet’s Press. Published September 2024.