“Perhaps like the dodo or the dinormis, the werewolf may have become extinct in our age, yet he has left his stamp on classic antiquity…. He belonged to a bad breed, and we are quite content to be freed from him and his kindred, the vampire and the ghoul. Yet who knows! We may be a little too hasty in concluding that he is extinct. He may still prowl…”
— “The Book of Were-Wolves” by Sabine Baring-Gould
[Chapter 1 “Introductory,” Smith, Elder & Co., 1865]
Discrimination had become the norm.
Conservatives oppressed the powerless,
The nonconformists, anyone who seemed
Like trouble. Horizons must bend their bounds.
Ghettos were built for werewolves — a kingdom
For otherworldly rebel royalty.
Stripped of our rights, our movements were controlled
By curfews. Procreating was outlawed.
Escapees rarely made it — will unstitched
By bullets, torture, or starvation’s script.
Believers were considered “virtuous”
For hating our kind — dubbed “the vicious ones.”
But I refuse to be the last werewolf,
Confined on land that was stolen from us,
Preached to by champions of liberty,
Remembering my parents’ agony.
Revolt has started with fertility.
Repeated pregnancies an army make.
An insurrection spurs a regime change.
Prologues go unrecorded. Best that way.
About the Author
Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist. In 2024 LindaAnn LoSchiavo had three poetry books published in 3 different countries; two titles won multiple awards.
In 2025 two titles are forthcoming: “Cancer Courts My Mother” and “Vampire Verses” – fully illustrated by Giulia Massarin.
A segment of my formal verse functions as dispatches from the Bar-do—that liminal space I escape to with my imaginative alter-egos and my gothic predilections.
