Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The Witch with Eyes of Amber

Read "The Witch with Eyes of Amber" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/659/the-witch-with-eyes-of-amber

This poem from Clark Ashton smith (CAS) combines elements of the erotic with the supernatural, a mix that would seem to play to all of his greatest strengths as a writer.  That said, the result in this particular poem is somewhat humdrum.  

The use of several hyphenated words ("furnace-flake", "many-needled", etc) only adds to this impression.  Given that CAS possessed such a large vocabulary the overuse of these compound words "The Witch with Eyes of Amber" simply suggests that he was not working at the top of his game when he wrote this poem.

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