Dancing with Maria's Ghost

The new dark poetry collection by Two-Time Bram Stoker Award Winner Alessandro Manzetti.

The line between love and obsession is thin-thinner when love looks like madness, and perhaps thinnest when the object of that love is no longer living. These dark and lyrical poems detail the desire and descent of a man who falls in love with the impossible: the ghost of the great coloratura soprano, Maria Callas. Once dubbed the 'ultimate diva', the tumult of this tragic beauty beckons to him from the underworld, and in shades of exquisite darkness she lures him deeper into sweet insanity and toward his own gorgeous destruction.

Greek islands, Roman ruins, Parisian apartments. A quiet room in the chaos of war-ravaged Europe. On the stage, through the body, in the body that is a stage-these settings are the backdrop of this cursed romance. Through drama, theatre, the ache of broken genius and the strength of timeless art, the poems in this collection celebrate the memory of a beloved icon, and serenade the victims of doomed love.

Cover art by Pierluigi Abbondanza, interior illustrations by Barbara Monacelli