Step Back into the Dark
Welcome
Hello, my name is Allison Goldstein. I am a poet, writer, dancer, visual artist and Halloween enthusiast who was born and raised in South Florida. I studied creative writing at SUNY Purchase and received my MFA from the California College of the Arts. Over the years, my work has appeared in a variety of literary and cultural publications, including Not Very Quiet, Burnt Pine, Gyroscope Review, Molecule, and Maximum Rocknroll.
In addition to poetry, I also love writing about pop culture, movies, art, travel, and all the wonders and absurdities of life. While you’re here, check out my Spooky Fun Designs Gallery, featuring some of my silly illustrations and artwork. Thanks for coming to my website.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Carnival of Souls – Release – Paper Dragon, Dec. 2024
Carnival of Souls – Muted – Simulacra: BarBar Vol. IV, 2024
Pandora’s Kitchen – Not Very Quiet: The Anthology, from Recent Work Press, 2021
Mirrors: A Conversation – Burnt Pine Magazine, 2021
The Mummy– Gyroscope Review, Spring 2021
Dawn Of The Dead – Molecule, A Tiny Lit Mag, Issue 7, 2022
Get in touch
Find me online or leave a note!
Thanks for Visiting
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Disappearing Ink
Watch it fade
each character dissolving
like a ghost
in a mirror a word and then
the sentence slips
each and each (what is)
meant, the
word herself uncooling
and then
what secrets left puddle
lose shape, the body she thought
a minor evaporation
(it does not) stutter
the return and then
the word she knows
it isn’t meant
to last, unlearning itself
a blossom in reverse
This poem was originally published in Cicatrix: A Journal of Experimentation in 2017. I wanted to play with the concepts common in erasure poems, exploring both form and formatting by creating space between the words that can be a placeholder for a breath as well as to leave room for both anticipation and surprise. The idea of ink disappearing also plays with the idea of memory – one of the most frequent themes in my work. I loved the idea of ink fading over time the same way memories fade over time, adding another layer of complexity when trying to relive a moment, a story, or a feeling.
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Sigh
a little breath
a little breath that walks
her breath,
a waltz
a waltz in green-blue grasses
feathered high into the salted air
slanted— a breath that tilts each
stalk
hiding in air, let’s waltz
opal eyes like pastures gone
momentarily blind
This poem originally appeared in Switchback Journal (from the University of San Francisco) back in 2006. It’s part of a small series of poems I started forever ago about expressive gestures. Additional poems from this mini collection include Wink, Smile, and Leer. When I started the series, I was reading ‘The Seventy Prepositions’ by Carol Snow and enamored with the idea of taking a small gesture and diving into it from physical, emotional, and etymological perspective.
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‘Carnival of Souls – Release’ Featured in Paper Dragon Vol. 8
I’m delighted to announce that another one of my horror movie poems, ‘Carnival of Souls – Release’ has been published in Paper Dragon, Vol. 8. This is the second horror poem I created based on the movie, Carnival of Souls (1962). While both poems are part of a larger collection, I think it’s a bit amazing that CoS is the only movie where I liked two versions of a poem enough to keep both AND that they ended up being published by very different publishers only days apart. ‘Carnival of Souls – Muted’ appears in Simulacra: BarBar Vol. IV (which you can purchase on Amazon).
Both poems are very different from each other and inspired by different themes in the film – which I highly recommend if you’ve never seen it. Carnival of Souls isn’t exactly scary and by modern horror standards, many of the ideas and makeup choices may seem outdated — but the way the filmmaker explores what it feels like navigating the world as a woman (whether alive or dead), feels incredibly timely and relevant. Paper Dragon Vol. 8 is a horror-themed issue and I hope you enjoy reading all the exciting work in this spooky volume. Part of Paper Dragon’s platform is pairing written and visual works, and I was so excited to see my poem set alongside ‘This Limestone Doom’ by Brett Stout. Check out the whole issue and start off the new year with some deliciously creepy work.
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Simulacra: BarBar Vol. IV Now Available
I’m so excited to announce my poem, “Carnival of Souls – Muted” is featured in the newly released Simulacra: BarBar Vol. IV, edited by Cory Nolan. Now available on Amazon, this intriguing anthology promises to transport readers into a realm where reality cannot be trusted, and what you see isn’t always real. Per the editor:
“You are about to embark on a journey beyond the outer reaches, through liminal spaces, into the uncanny valley, where the familiar becomes foreign, the self fractures, and alienation, paranoia, and absurdity await. BarBar Vol. IV, our latest collection of poetry and prose, invites you to confront the void—an infinite regress of pastiche—where reality unravels, and simulation ascends. Here, hyperreality distorts perception, leaving only echoes of existence tangled in existential dread and cosmic horror.”
Featuring a thoughtfully curated selection of poetry and prose, this issue of BarBar is perfect for readers looking to go beyond the ordinary and explore the dark and mysterious corners of the mind.
My personal contribution is from an ongoing collection of poems that explore the themes, characters, and aesthetics of 20th century horror films. Additional poems from this series, including ‘The Mummy’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’, have also been published. Check out my Publications page if you haven’t read them yet!
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Notes on Poetry
At its essence, a poem is the pursuit of a moment. A compulsion to capture, distill, and examine the essence of experience. To trap it under glass and view it through a microscope that gazes past atoms and electrons to the true core of a time, a place, a feeling. We do this for one very specific reason – what can be captured, can be shared.
A poem is the connection linking souls between centuries – a DNA strand of words and images and metaphors designed to tear down the invisible layers that separate humanity by time and space, and communicate the intrinsic tensions that unite us. To say both to each other and the eons ahead – this is what I saw and this is how it felt – join me in this moment that has always and never existed.
The act of reading the poem only serves to create a new moment, fortifying this connection, even as time changes our perception of what that poem means – or rather, how we react to same words viewed through a different place in our own lives.
Poems can grow, you see. They can change shape when you’re not looking. You can read something at 20 and come back to it at 40 with a completely new lens. The moment continues to expand and retract, revealing itself in new ways to each reader. That’s part of its magic.
A poem is a moment in search of a song.
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Not Very Quiet: The Anthology
Check out my poem, Pandora’s Kitchen, along with all the other exceptional work from talented poets across the globe in Not Very Quiet: The Anthology, released by Recent Work Press in 2021. You can purchase the anthology directly from Recent Work Press and help support small, independent publishers.
The official anthology description: Over the last five years, from the #Me Too Movement to same-sex marriage, from devastating bush fires to the global pandemic, the online poetry journal Not Very Quiet has dedicated itself to publishing women’s voices from across the globe. Not Very Quiet: The anthology selects poetry that has given voice to the social conscience of the community, constructions of lesbian and queer, the challenges posed to the social construction of gender, as well as the complexities and possibilities of the human condition.
Edited by Moya Pacey & Sandra Renew
Allison Goldstein 