Halloween is closely approaching in just a few days and I know we crave something a little darker, a little more chilling and eerie before this holiday ends. Let these wonderfully dark, eerie poetry collections send off Halloween for you; and truthfully, these poetry collections are fantastic reads all year long. Take a look at a few of these horror poets and their poetry collections and carry them with you all year long!
Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken by Christine Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn
This first poetry collection is comprised of the individual talents of four brilliant Asian women—Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn. Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken dives into dark femininity and focuses on the resilience, rebirth, and regeneration of body and soul. The collection is intelligently steeped in its political, societal, and cultural context; the poetry itself hauntingly invites readers to delve into and read the experiences of these four women.
Poems of My Night by Cynthia Pelayo
This fantastic bundle of poetry by Cynthia Pelayo is a direct response to the poet, Jorge Luis Borges’s Poems of the Night. In Poems of My Night, she examines the themes around insomnia, death, and blindness. Her haunting verse in poetry form contemplates the limits, the edge of human existence (maybe even inexistence). Entrenched in the night’s darkness, Pelayo explores and subverts natural phenomena and makes us reconsider & ruminate on our fears. This poetry collection deserves more than one reading.
Poems from the Attic by Morgan Nikola-Wren
Poems from the Attic by Morgan Nikola-Wren is delightfully readable and welcoming. It’s a dark beauty of both art and poetry with many evocative key phrases that stem from a quieter, unobserved space in the self. This collection of poems by Nikoa-Wren is a must for anyone who enjoys a quick but deeply compelling read.
Into the Forest and All the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo
Another Cynthia Pelayo recommendation, Into the Forest and All the Way Through is a quintessentially important collection of poetry. Be warned, this collection is heavy and deals with the sensitive subject of femicide & murder of women. The poetry collection touches both horror and true crime, exploring the cases of over 100 missing and murdered women. Pelayo invites the ghosts of these women into the collection where they share their grief and sadness.
Index of Haunted Houses by Adam O. Davis
This poetry collection is a collection of ghosts and memories. Index of Haunted Houses by Adam O. Davis is a debut poetry collection and concentrates on the way we impact the spaces that we live in, and what happens to those spaces when we are gone. The progression of time and space is explored and makes for a fantastic, haunting read.
Underworld Lit by Srikanth Reddy
Underworld Lit by Srikanth Reddy is a poetry collection that traverses life, death, culture, and time. In this collection, Reddy explores the afterlife within a multicultural context. The poetry begins within a literature classroom and moves its way across time and into the underworld where our praxis shifts. We in turn reconsider our positions in the world, mortality, and mutability.
Undead: A Poetry Anthology of Ghosts, Ghouls, and More ed. by Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Katerina Stoykova
Undead: A Poetry Anthology of Ghosts, Ghouls, and More is a poetry anthology edited by Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Katerina Stoykova. An anthology is a a great and easy way to get into something new and this anthology will certainly get you into dark, horror poetry with a variety of poets and poems.
I hope these poetry recommendations come to you and you are welcomed into the wonderful world of horror poetry. For more dark and horrifying reads, take a look at my article about horror. If you’re interested in fall reads, here is an article of cozy poetry collections.