Poetry and the Gods that Lovecraft and Winifred Jackson co-wrote with a Greek mythology basis. What Anna Helen Crofts contributed to "Poetry and the Gods" is unknown. Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi reports that she "appeared sporadically in the amateur press, and may have been introduced to [Lovecraft] by Winifred Jackson." Lovecraft's surviving letters do not mention "Poetry and the Gods". In his 1955 essay on the Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraft scholar George Wetzel compares the messenger god Hermes in "Poetry and the Gods" with Nyarlathotep, the "messenger of Azathoth". Wetzel considers the dream communication used by Hermes to be "the same psychic device used
Shooting the messenger him". A related sentiment was expressed in "Antigone" by Sophocles as "no one loves the messenger who brings bad news" or "no man delights in the bearer of bad news" (). The sentiment that one should not shoot the messenger was expressed by Shakespeare in "Henry IV, Part 2" (1598) and in "Antony and Cleopatra": Cleopatra threatens to treat the messenger's eyes as balls when told Antony has married another, eliciting the response "Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match." The term also applied to a town crier, an officer of the court who made