Poetry and the Gods is a short story by horror writer and poet H.P. Lovecraft in collaboration with writer Anna Helen Crofts. The story is very different from the vast majority of Lovecraft’s other work and collaborations. It does, however, bear similar themes regarding dreams as a doorway to magic realms, and slumbering gods.
The narrative follows the dream-voyage of Marcia, a young woman filled with weariness of the mundane world and all its woes. She resolves to ease her troubled soul by reading a magazine of poetry. As she does, a dream-state unfolds in which the Greek god Hermes appears and bears Marcia to the court of Zeus and the Olympians.