What the Night Brings is Frank Coffman's fourth major collection of speculative verses. It includes yet another 72-title/103 sonnet sequence (the same number of titles as did his immediately previous collection Eclipse of the Moon). The sequence is followed by a long narrative poem (an epyllion [mini-epic], The Kimi Xibalba ["Place of Fear and Death" in Mayan], recounting the purported voyage of discover and horror by a group of pre-Olmec explorers. More non-sonnet contributions of weird, supernatural, and horrific verse follows, leading into a section of "Ghosts of the Fox Valley" about ghostly, urban legends along that Wisconsin and Illinois river. There is a section of "Political Poems" [Warning: This section kills fascists]. The concluding sections provide ekphrastic poems, homages, some light verse, and a few "traditional poems." As with all of his major collections, the book concludes with a complete "Glossary of Forms" detailing and explaining the many and various exotic, cross-cultural, ancient to modern, and invented forms used in the tome.

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   “Frank Coffman might be dubbed the ‘John James Audubon of supernormal haunts.’ His is taxonomic work of a curious and exceptional kind, and its core purpose is illustrative rather than lyric, narrative, or ruminative, though he uses those modes ably. He is an adept cataloger of interesting verse forms, and many of his poems are feats of metrical engineering. For one who enters Coffman's newest book, What the Night Brings, with these expectations, there are delights and felicities galore, from the splendid title poem all the way to the kaleidoscopic glossary of forms. His strongest sonnets stand among the best in the evolving canon of weird verse.”

   —Steven Withrow, poet and author of The Nothing Box