Why Were All the Werewolves Men?

Sheree Haughian is a teacher-librarian in Orangeville, Ontario.

It’s a pity that the Shelleys (Mary and P.B.) didn’t combine their
talents and obsessions to create a volume of poetry about monsters. Not
to worry—in Why Were All the Werewolves Men? Richard Stevenson has
provided lighthearted fill for any such gap. Ballads and verse with
rhyming couplets, southern dialects, and tongue-in-cheek humor in turn
evoke the famous and obscure creatures of revolting image and noxious
breath. Dracula, Nessie, Bigfoot, and Windigo share the loathsome
limelight with lesser-known uglies such as the Rumpefusal and the
Tazelwurm. Gail Mikla’s black-and-white illustrations of 11 of these
mythical beasts bring bits of visual identification to poetic
description.

This poetry “unctuously oozes” its way into the imagination. It is
an exploration of language that extends the vocabulary of distaste
beyond the teenage typicals of “gross” and “disgusting.” It
invites interesting extensions in poetry composition and opportunities
for hideous art. Above all, these poems refuse to make the unknown
commonplace. Alas! The question about the gender of werewolves remains a
mystery. Recommended.