Horror Poetry Review Wilfrid Gibson Flannan Island

Tweet

I stumbled on this unexpected gem in a general poetry anthology, and I know nothing about Gibson other than his year of birth, 1878. Flannan Island is a remote lump of rock bearing a lighthouse to warn passing ships of rocks, shoals, sandbanks, etc. When reports come through that the light has not been lit, a crew of three men head to the island to investigate why. After a dangerous landing, the team find three strange birds that they can't identify and the birds avoid capture. The island reeks of death and rot, but there is no trace of the three lighthouse keepers who are supposed to be there. A pet bird in a cage in their lounge lies close to starvation in its cage. A chair has fallen over as if someone left in a terrible hurry but like the Marie Celeste no reason for the disappearances can be found. The narrator tells us that six other men died for no known reason on the island, three men had gone insane there an another had committed suicide. The narrator shivers thinking of the coincidence of three live investigators baffled by the disappearance of three men, not adding the three monstrous bird creatures and three madmen. I like the idea of working / living in a lighthouse but I'm not applying to work on Flannan Island any time soon. Arthur Chappell