| "The Bone Church" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by Stephen King | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | horror, fantasy, narrative poetry | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Playboy, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams | ||
| Publication type | poem | ||
| Publisher | Playboy, Charles Scribner's Sons | ||
| Media type | |||
| Publication date | November, 2009 | ||
| Chronology | |||
| |||
"The Bone Church" is a narrative poem by Stephen King, first published in the November 2009 issue of Playboy,[1] where it was illustrated by Phil Hale. It has since been collected and re-introduced in the November 3, 2015 anthology The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. In that introduction, King reveals that the poem is a revision of one he remembers writing in the late 1960s, which was performed by a friend at a University of Maine gathering.
The poem's narrative is told in the first-person vernacular of a bar patron, who, in exchange for memories, demands drinks of his unidentified listener. He describes a doomed expedition through the jungles of an unnamed land, at the end of which only a few of the once-large party have survived. Awaiting the survivors is a dark, mystical experience.
- ^ Alison Flood. "Stephen King publishes poem in Playboy | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-10-23.