Though owing much to Poe, C.A. Smith far surpasses his predecessor of the fantastic in his natural sense of poetry’s music and the often visionary qualities of his imagery. I’d say, as far as poetry is concerned, he also surpassed his contemporary, Lovecraft, though the works of both share a darkly cosmic scope. As the title denotes, these selections also include prose poems whose strange beauty rivals even the works of Baudelaire; which also marks Smith as one of the very few successful American poets of truly decadent sensibility.