Under Her Skin

 Tell me a story... that gives me the chills

Under Her Skin by Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller (editors)

Expected Publication date: April 5, 2022

Date read: March 12, 2022

Black Spot Books presents its inaugural Poetry Showcase, featuring the best in never-before-published dark verse and lyrical prose from the voices of Women in Horror. This collection centers on the concept of body horror, specifically focused on the female body. 

When I first started this collection, I questioned the use of the term "body horror" in the synopses, as most of the poems were more about how the female body is treated, and tended to be a bit gory and raw, but not really "body horror". More about body dysmorphia or body image. But as the collection continued, there was definitely more body horror to be found. 

Despite a fair amount of gore and queasy content, this collection is overall very beautiful. I don't read a lot of poetry, but I really liked this collection and the way that these authors find a way to be both beautiful and disturbing with so little word count.

This collection isn't exactly what I was expecting, as I was anticipating more scary content (with the horror genre) than disturbing/gory content, and there really wasn't anything scary in the collection. But I think that was more my naive interpretation of "horror poetry" than anything negative against this collection. 

Overall, I really liked this book. It's a quick read, but there were a lot of poems that really stuck with me (whether for the beauty of the words or for the disturbing feeling left by them). I can't wait to read more collections from this group in the years to come. 

Favorite poems: 

Harm by Emily Ruth Verona

Winnow by Tiffany Michelle Brown

Lilies Left for Mom by Brianna Malotke

The Carrion Flowers by Morgan Sylvia

Rating: 4/5 stars

Trigger warning: body horror, violence, gore, body dysmorphia, rape

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book