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 | A Complex Accident of Life by Jessica McHugh

 A Complex Accident of Life is a poetry collection by Jessica McHugh.

Inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Jessica McHugh's debut poetry collection, A Complex Accident of Life, combines visual art and text to create 52 pieces of Gothic blackout poetry exploring the intense passion, enigmatic nature, and transformative pleasure of life, viewed through the kaleidoscopic lens of a female horror artist.

Wow, I really loved this collection. It was written using the blackout poetry technique where you use words contained within an existing text and blackout the rest creating a poem. I'll post an example from this collection here:

Affection

I must own my purpose.
Courage and hope will demand all my fortitude,
And there is a great remaining road between
     Angel     and     intention.

All of the poems in this collection were created using pages out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I loved it. The poems were incredible, and I'm really inspired by the whole process.

If you're a fan of poetry, do check it out.

4.5/5 stars

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.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Book Review | The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

The Sun and Her Flowers is a poetry collection by Rupi Kaur.

From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.

Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

this is the recipe of life
said my mother
as she held me in her arms as i wept
think of those flowers you plant
in the garden each year
they will teach you
that people too
must wilt
fall
root
rise
in order to bloom

The Sun and Her Flowers is the followup to Rupi Kaur's amazing poetry collection Milk and Honey. (You can read my review of Milk and Honey here.)

Unfortunately, I didn't love The Sun and Her Flowers as much as I loved Milk and Honey. There were several poems in The Sun and Her Flowers that I did love very much, but as a whole, the collection fell more toward the middle for me.

The Sun and Her Flowers felt like an extension of Milk and Honey, and I highly recommend reading Milk and Honey first. I think I enjoyed The Sun and Her Flowers much more having read it on the heels of Milk and Honey. Rupi Kaur has a unique style, and I think it was presented best in her previous collection.

Even though The Sun and Her Flowers didn't wind up as a favorite collection, I do still recommend it. I look forward to picking up more poetry by Rupi Kaur in the future.

⭐⭐⭐

Book Review | Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Milk and Honey is a poetry collection by Rupi Kaur.

milk and honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. It is about the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. It is split into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose, deals with a different pain, heals a different heartache. milk and honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

I've been interested in reading Rupi Kaur's poetry collections for a while now due to the huge amount of praise they have received. After being on a poetry kick this year, her collections made their way to the top of my wishlist.

As luck would have it, I ran into both Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers while doing a bit of after Halloween shopping. I did not intend on reading Milk and Honey right away, but I made the mistake of reading the first poem. After that, my entire TBR went out the window.

This collection was breathtaking, but it was also heartbreaking. Rupi Kaur took an honest look at rape, abuse, love, and pain in her poetry. Milk and Honey was a large collection, and like with any large collection of work, there were poems I didn't care for. Most of her poetry, however, was stunning.

The poetry in Milk and Honey was very accessible. While I understand some may shy away from the subject matter, the language was completely understandable and as a woman, (unfortunately) completely relatable.

If you are in the mood to pick up a poetry collection, I highly recommend that you seek out Milk and Honey. I will be reading The Sun and Her Flowers next!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Review | HWA Poetry Showcase Volume V edited by Stephanie M. Wytovich

The HWA Poetry Showcase Volume V is an anthology of dark poetry edited by Stephanie M. Wytovich.

The fifth volume of HWA's acclaimed annual poetry anthology features dark verse by Donna Lynch, R. J. Joseph, Sara Tantlinger, and many more.

Each year the Horror Writers Association opens a call for submissions to the members of the HWA for the annual poetry showcase.

Selections for the showcase are chosen by a jury, and this year's showcase was judged by Mercedes M. Yardley and Michael A. Arzen. Stephanie M. Wytovich was editor.

I really enjoyed this anthology of poems.

The HWA Poetry Showcase is the perfect way to discover new poets who write dark poetry. I immediately ordered a collection from Cynthia Pelayo after reading her poem, and several other poets were added to my wishlist.

Some of my favorite poems in the showcase were:

I Am by Cynthia Pelayo
It's Coming by Rob E. Boley
He Said by Kerri-Leigh Grady
Libri Haruspicy by Amanda Hard
Thirst by Annie Neugebauer
The Witch Hunt by Jacopo della Quercia
The Joy of Sewing by Christina Sng

If you are looking for a great anthology of poetry and a way to discover some current dark poets, I recommend checking out Volume V of the HWA Poetry Showcase.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Review | Candle And Pins by Jacqueline West

Candle And Pins is a dark fantasy poetry collection by Jacqueline West.

The poems of “Candle and Pins” are inspired by familiar—and some unfamiliar—superstitions, ranging from love charms to burial practices, parsley seeds to the evil eye. Like superstitions themselves, these poems explore the terrain where magic and everyday life intertwine, and where beauty, horror, fear, and belief combine in ways both new and ageless.

In the last moment, I turned my eyes away – grandfather was cutting. Grandmother prayed.

I was really excited to be offered a review copy of Candle and Pins. Not only am I trying to read a lot of poetry this year, Jacqueline West is an author I already had on my wishlist. She’s an MG/YA children’s book author so reading an adult dark fantasy/horror poetry collection by her was something I absolutely wanted to do. Imaginative horror poetry is a trifecta I am not going to pass up.

Preceding every poem in Candle and Pins is a superstition related to that particular poem. For example, the superstition that goes along with the poem titled Mother-Die is if children pick these red and white flowers, their mother's death is near.

The poems in Candle and Pins breathed life into each superstition which, in turn, added an extra dimension to the entire collection.

My favorite poem of the collection was a poem called Ash Tree. The superstition it was based on states a young ash tree is severed, and an injured child is passed through the split part of the tree. Afterward, the ash is carefully bound, and as the sapling grows together, the child is healed. It reminded me of the old fairy tales that I used to love reading, and it was just a beautifully written poem.

If you love dark poetry, Candle and Pins is a lovely collection to check out. I will definitely be reading more of Jacqueline West in the future.

7/10: Recommended Read

Review copy provided by author

Book Review | If You Died Tomorrow I Would Eat Your Corpse by Wrath James White

If You Died Tomorrow I Would Eat Your Corpse is a poetry collection by Wrath James White.

Poems of the Erotic, the Romantic, the Violent, and the Grotesque.

After reading No Mercy by Alessandro Manzetti last year {my review}, I've been wanting to read a lot more horror poetry. The only exposure I have to horror poetry these days is the occasional inclusion in an anthology. This year I'm seeking out single author poetry collections so get ready to see more poetry reviews from me.

If You Died Tomorrow I'd Eat Your Corpse was an interesting first selection for me. I am not an erotica reader so I was throwing myself outside of my comfort zone in both format and content.

Overall, I'm extremely glad I read this one.

I've noticed something over the last year in particular: collection introductions can be extremely helpful. I feel like most of my reading life I've skipped over the introduction (give me the stories already!), but the last few collection introductions I've read have really put me in the correct frame of mind heading into the stories.

In the introduction to If You Died Tomorrow I Would Eat Your Corpse, Wrath James White comments on the time span in which he wrote these poems. Some of them go back to his "angst-ridden youth". A lot of his comments show in the unevenness of the collection, but I was prepared for it.

Not being an erotica reader and not being a regular reader of poetry, there were a lot of misses for me in the collection, but there were some hits, too.

One "poem" in particular (Perpetual Motion) is one of the greatest things I've read this year. I say "poem" because there is a short poem that leads into basically a short story*. I hate to say my favorite thing about this poetry collection is a short story, but it is and it's worth reading the entire collection to just have it framed around that one short story.

7/10: Recommended Read

Update: Since writing my review I have learned about "prose poems" which are written in prose without line breaks but maintain a poetic quality. This would be an appropriate description of Perpetual Motion.

Book Review | No Mercy by Alessandro Manzetti

No Mercy is a collection of horror poetry from Alessandro Manzetti.

From the Bram Stoker Award-winning poet that brought you Eden Underground...

The Lady in Black shows no mercy to anyone; she has cold skin, a job to do, and many lovers on Earth: Despair, Loneliness, Madness, and their soldiers and killers of daily life, armed with blades, hammers, teeth, and illusions. There are strange and bloody stories that tell all about it, if you want to hear them…

Are you sure? Well, you’ve found the right place, but consider that in turning these pages you’ll be thrown forward through time, until you reach the Apocalypse—the last stop.

So, like the Lady in Black, show yourself no mercy—sit down and read these stories, listening to Janis Joplin with a bottle of Southern Comfort cradled in your arm.

Don’t worry, you’ll find both of them inside this book, along with so many other dark pleasures.

No Mercy is dedicated to the late, great Janis Joplin. Some of these poems placed me right into Port Arthur, Texas and "the smell of river and summer". I had to look up where Alessandro Manzetti is from to find out if he is simply that big of a Janis Joplin fan or if he is actually from my part of the world. It turns out he lives in Italy.

I cannot claim to be an authority on poetry. I love reading it when I come across it, but I've never really made an effort to seek out modern poetry. I used to subscribe to a lot of fiction magazines (mostly horror) and that's where I've been exposed to most of the modern poetry that I have read save for a few anthologies that have included them. My personal feeling toward poetry is that it should evoke some sort of emotion from the reader. Perhaps I only feel that way because all of my favorite poems have done that, and as I stated, I'm not any kind of an authority on what poetry should or should not do.

For me, No Mercy was very successful in evoking emotion. For that, I think it is a wonderful collection. Unfortunately, the emotions it evoked for me were not pleasant. I feel like No Mercy did it's job, but I wasn't the perfect audience.

No Mercy is a perfect title, I suppose; it's a very bleak collection.

I have no doubt there is an audience that will connect with all of the poems in No Mercy, and it will be a solid collection for those readers. If you look at the ugliness of horror and see beauty, you might be the right fit. I look at horror as something to overcome. I see horror as a balance to the light. It's more of a source of entertainment for me than something I try to internalize. I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading this collection, though, because your mileage certainly could vary.

6/10: Good Read

Review copy provided by publisher