Did you know Tim Burton, the movie maker, was a poet? It’s true. He’s written a rather macabre and interesting bit of poetic stories called The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: and Other Stories. I’m not going to lie to you and say these are great poems, but they will make you laugh. They bear the surreal fingerprint of Burton, the soft touch animation with a dark satiric flair. Still, in all their uniqueness, they are nowhere near the works of art that Edward Scissorhands, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and his first Batman movie are. But if you’re a die-hard Tim Burton fan you’ll really like them.

If you’ll read the Tim Burton bio at WCP you’ll learn a little bit more about Burton’s life, but before you do that, watch these two short videos. One is a reader interpretation of the title poem of Oyster Boy, and I must say that the young lady did a rather nice job, and the other is an early animated work of Burton’s called Vincent. Enjoy!