Book Review | Cradleland of Parasites by Sara Tantlinger

Cradleland of Parasites is a horror poetry collection by Sara Tantlinger.

Bram Stoker Award-winner Sara Tantlinger delivers her CRADLELAND OF PARASITES, a harrowing and darkly gorgeous collection of poetry chronicling the death and devastation of one of history's greatest horrors: The Black Plague.

I have fallen upon a few plague novels over the course of the pandemic. It's very surreal to read about plagues, pandemics, the history of harsh and fatal diseases while living through a pandemic. It definitely heightens the works that I have been reading lately!

The poems in Cradleland of Parasites center around The Black Plague. Wow, these poems were dark and brutal and beautiful. Some of my favorites were Second Pandemic, Moral Decay, Death Knell, and An Advanced Society.

Cradleland of Parasites was my first poetry collection by Sara Tantlinger. I read and loved her novella To Be Devoured which definitely had a poetic quality to it. I look forward to checking out more from her in the future!

⭐⭐⭐💫★

3.5/5 stars

Review copy provided by author

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Book Review | The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich

The Apocalyptic Mannequin is a horror poetry collection by Stephanie M. Wytovich.

Doomsday is here and the earth is suffering with each breath she takes. Whether it's from the nuclear meltdown, the wrath of the Four Horsemen, a war with technology, or a consequence of our relationship with the planet, humanity is left buried and hiding, our bones exposed, our hearts beating somewhere in our freshly slit throats.

The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich is a collection that strips away civilization and throws readers into the lives of its survivors. The poems inside are undelivered letters, tear-soaked whispers, and unanswered prayers. They are every worry you've had when your electricity went out, and every pit that grew in your stomach watching the news at night. They are tragedy and trauma, but they are also grief and fear, fear of who--or what--lives inside us once everything is taken away.

These pages hold the teeth of monsters against the faded photographs of family and friends, and here, Wytovich is both plague doctor and midwife, both judge and jury, forever searching through severed limbs and exposed wires as she straddles the line evaluating what's moral versus what's necessary to survive.

What's clear though, is that the world is burning and we don't remember who we are.

So tell me: who will you become when it's over?

If you've been following my updates for a while, you know I enjoy reading poetry. I especially love reading horror poetry so I was really excited to check out Stephanie Wytovich's latest collection The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Several of the Ladies of Horror Fiction team members had already read and loved it so I had high expectations going into it.

Wow, was this collection timely! I have no idea why I wasn't expecting a book called "The Apocalyptic Mannequin" to be so apocalyptic. It hit me hard in the pandemic feels! I'm pretty sure I've been avoiding the topic of outbreaks and plagues in my entertainment so I'm glad I didn't realize what I was getting myself into when I picked it up. It turned out to be perfect timing, and I loved it!

At roughly 100 poems, there are a lot of flavors of the apocalypse to be had, and they are all terrifying.

One of the most important things I look for in poetry is being able to understand it in a way that I can relate to. I've read a lot of poetry that has left me scratching my head, but Wytovich's poetry is very accessible. There is a reason Stephanie Wytovich is so well loved in the horror community. Her writing is beautiful and it's brutal.

If you are looking for a recommendation on where to start reading poetry or are simply looking for another great collection to pick up, The Apocalyptic Mannequin is on my recommendations list. It's a travesty that I've put off reading Wytovich's poetry collections until now. Since finishing The Apocalyptic Mannequin, I've added four more of her collections to my shelf. I plan to lose myself in each of them over the next few months so stay tuned for my thoughts on those as well.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5/5 Stars

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Poetry Recommendations | Poetry Magazine and Choking Back the Devil by Donna Lynch

Poetry Magazine July/August 2019

I recently subscribed to Poetry Magazine. Eleven times a year I will receive a book sized collection of poetry.

The current volume (July/August) showcases Global Indian English poetry, and I absolutely loved it. The voices and the themes were so varied, and they were amazing.

"The poets included herein represent neither cohesion nor diversity, in fact there is nothing represented in these pages except exemplary poems from people with complicated relationships to the words global, Indian, and English either in combination or separately."

I'm looking forward to reading many more volumes of Poetry Magazine in the future.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Choking Back the Devil by Donna Lynch

Choking Back the Devil by Donna Lynch is an invocation, an ancient invitation that summons the darkness within and channels those lonely spirits looking for a host. It's a collection that lives in the realm of ghosts and family curses, witchcraft and urban legends, and if you're brave enough to peek behind the veil, the hauntings that permeate these pages will break seals and open doorways, cut throats and shatter mirrors.

You see, these poems are small drownings, all those subtle suffocations that live in that place between our ribs that swells with panic, incubates fear. Lynch shows her readers that sometimes our shadow selves--our secrets--are our sharpest weapons, the knives that rip through flesh, suture pacts with demons, cut deals with entities looking for more than a homecoming, something better, more intimate than family.

It's about the masks we wear and the reflections we choose not to look at, and what's most terrifying about the spells is these incantations show that we are the possessed, that we are our greatest monster, and if we look out of the corner of our eyes, sometimes--if we've damned ourselves enough--we can catch a glimpse of our own burnings, what monstrosities and mockeries we're to become.

So cross yourselves and say your prayers. Because in this world, you are the witch and the hunter, the girl and the wolf.

If you've been on the fence at all about trying horror poetry, Choking Back the Devil is a great place to start.

This was my first time to read Donna Lynch, and it definitely won't be my last. I loved the poems in this collection, and I highly recommend Choking Back the Devil as a collection to try.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Review | American Primitive by Mary Oliver

American Primitive is a poetry collection by Mary Oliver.

The fifty poems in "American Primitive" make up a body of luminous unity. Mary Oliver's visionary poems enunciate the renewals of nature and the renewals of humanity in love, in oneness with the natural, in union with the things of this world. Lyrical and elegiac, Mary Oliver celebrates the primitiave things of America - the wilderness that survives both within our bodies and outside - in ."..the cords/ of my body stretching/ and singing in the/ heaven of appetite."

When I got back into poetry last year, I turned to some of Mary Oliver's non-fiction books to learn more about poetry. In the process, I wound up learning about myself and reasons why I've always had a connection to poetry. The poems in Oliver's non-fiction books were written by other poets. I wanted to read some of Oliver's poetry so I purchased a copy of American Primitive.

I was saddened to learn of Mary Oliver passing a couple of weeks ago. As we tend to do when we lose an artist, I spent time getting to know her poetry in American Primitive.

I loved Oliver's take on the wilderness that exists in nature as well as within ourselves.

Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for American Primitive. This was a great choice for experiencing her work. I hope to hunt down many more of her collections in the future.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★