With Halloween coming, this Poetry Pairing features "Monsters" by Dorothea Lasky and the 2008 This Land column "In the Wilds of New Jersey, a Legend Inspires a Hunt" by Dan Barry. Dorothea Lasky's poem "Monsters" appeared in "Poetry Not Written for Children That Children Might Nevertheless Enjoy," a portfolio of poems that Lemony Snicket selected for the September 2013 issue of Poetry. In his footnotes, Mr. Snicket remarks: "The word "monster" automatically makes a poem more interesting." Monsters By Dorothea Lasky This is a world where there are monsters There are monsters everywhere, raccoons and skunks There are possums outside, there are monsters in my bed. There is one monster. He is my little one. I talk to my little monster. I give my little monster some bacon but that does not satisfy him. I tell him, ssh ssh, don't growl little monster! And he growls, oh boy does he growl! And he wants something from me, He wants my soul. And finally giving in, I give him my gleaming soul And as he eats my gleaming soul, I am one with him And stare out his eyepits and I see nothing but white And then I see nothing but fog and the white I had seen before was nothing but fog And there is nothing but fog out the eyes of monsters. In "In the Wilds of New Jersey, a Legend Inspires a Hunt," Dan Barry writes about a group of friends who search for the mythical creature known as the Jersey Devil. These college-educated people, who call themselves the Devil Hunters, order a round of soft drinks that includes two Shirley Temples. They say they are the "official researchers" of the Jersey Devil, a shy specimen of cryptozoology that has haunted these parts long enough to have sent tricornered hats spinning from the mops of frightened colonists. Laura Leuter, 30, the group's president, already knows what you're thinking: Why don't these "devil hunters" wake up, walk down to that Super Foodtown and buy some coffee to smell? "I'm the first one to say, "Yeah, I search for the Jersey Devil, ha-ha," " says Ms. Leuter, who supervises a call center when not searching for devil spoor. But why, to this day, do people still report sightings? Here's another question: Why do we wish for such things? Why do we root for the discovery of beings that would subvert our understanding of the natural order? Why, oh why, would a group of people actually hope that somewhere in the dark expanse, beyond the fluorescent lights of a New Jersey strip mall, there frolics - a devil? ... The beautiful and mysterious Pine Barrens can encourage such thoughts. A largely undeveloped swath of pines and oaks, swamps and bogs, it covers more than a million acres at the bottom of the country's most densely populated state and has produced scores of legends and stories, though none as famous as that of the Jersey Devil. The most common version, dating to 1735, concerns a local woman named Mother Leeds. Married to a drunken ingrate and pregnant with her 13th child, she had what today might be called a "moment." She expressed weariness with children and a wish that her unborn baby be a devil. Have you ever wished you could take back something you've said? Instead of greeting the world with coos, the story goes, the newborn mutated into a serpentine-tailed devil and introduced himself to family members by eating a few of them. He then flew up the chimney and out into the Jersey wilderness to begin centuries of shrieking, lurking and occasional mauling. Maybe the birth of a deformed child led to the story's creation; maybe parents concocted the tale to keep children from straying into the enveloping woods. Whatever the origin, the place of the devil in lore was secured in January 1909, when strange footprints, attacks on livestock and reported encounters with the devil over several days created panic in parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Posses conducted searches, police officers fired guns, and schoolchildren and mill workers found reason to stay home. "Monsters" appeared in the September 2013 issue of Poetry.