TW: gaslighting, rape, abusive, beauty standards

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book: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. Edited by Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller, the inaugural collection features work from Bram-Stoker award-winning and nominated authors, as well as dozens of poems from women (cis and trans) and non-binary femmes in horror.
Release Date:April 5th, 2022
Genre:Poetry
Pages:300
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

What I Liked:
• The editor's note in the beginning
• How relatable the poems were
• That cover 😍

What I Didn't Like:
• Some of the poems lacked the emotional punch that others had

Overall Thoughts: Writing poetry is such a difficult thing to do. To express your emotions and heart onto paper, but then to have people read it and understand the meaning behind it all, near impossible. I wish I could understand the low ratings but poetry is subjective. You either get it or you don't.

I thought this was a really good collection of poetic stories. Each one spoke in a voice that was understandable but each author and you can understand clearly the things that bothered them about themselves, and about this world

Final Thoughts: If you enjoy poetry that balances between the world of political and, religious, and female standards, you'll love this one.

I’m not sure this is what I was expecting going into this one, but it wasn’t this. Some of the poems weren’t for me, but I did enjoy many of them! The writing is dark, filled with so much rage and feminist themes. And can we take a moment to appreciate the cover?!

a raw and astounding collection that we’ve been waiting for. everyone needs to read this. Beautifully written by cis, trans women + non-binary people, it serves as a way to let their voices be heard and reinforce the fact we’re just plain tired.

My favourite thing about Under Her Skin was that it could have been used as an exclusionist space but instead chose to welcome all kinds of women and femme authors and it was so much the better for that. The editors understood that if you are a woman, then you are very familiar with the feeling of horror now and historically and that is present throughout all kinds of art that women were part of creating and divulging to larger masses which this poetry collection truly honoured. That diversity was also present when it came to the geographical origins and current homes of the contributors so this book featured all kinds of female experience, from body image to motherhood or simply the danger of existing in the world as a woman.

Thank you to NetGalley and Black Spot Books for this DRC.

Soft and disturbing. Unsettling, but familiar. Recognizable in all the wrong ways. These are really the only ways to describe this collection of work. The connectivity of humanity and horror, but more than that the connection between femininity and horror.
There is a lot that can be said or written about the biology and physical aspect of presenting/being feminine and their connection to horror. But even more than that the feelings that society and culture create with those that identify or present as feminine are even more disturbing when they are laid out in such open terms.
These writers definitely do not shy away from the horrific and the disturbing, so be prepared for that.

I love poetry so I was excited to read this. I ended up enjoying a lot of the poems. Unfortunately, there were some that I couldn't really get into. But that could have been just a me thing. I did enjoy that the poems were dark and gruesome. I did feel like there were a lot of poems in here, I think it could have been cut down. Overall it was good, but nothing amazing.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a good collection i couldnt put it down and devoured it one setting. From the front cover to the writing to the subject matter it just sang to me and I cannot wait to get a physical copy and annotate it. I loved it.

Thank you, NetGalley for providing me with this poetry collection!

Let me clear something first; I'm not a poetry lover so even finishşng a poetry book is a huge success for me. But the poems in this book made me crave more and more even though I couldn't read a lot in one sitting. I couldn't because they were so intense and full of emotions and horror that I had to stop after reading a couple or so each time. Each poet and poem is obviously selected so meticulously and the reader can feel it in every line.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this collection. As someone who just realized that there’s a whole, wonderful subgenre of dark poetry, I was intrigued by the the idea of a book of body horror poetry written by women and non-binary poets. The gorgeous cover also drew me in, and the collection is excellent. Sometimes, you can judge a book by it’s cover.

Editors Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller have a very broad interpretation of body horror which benefits the anthology immensely. The poems range from disquieting to horrific, from self-destructive to murderous, from medical problems to the supernatural, and everywhere in between. It’s empowering to read such a collection in gulps, to witness poets reclaiming themselves and their bodies, even if the reclamation is sometimes grotesque.

Reading these poems evokes strong emotions. Sometimes, I felt repulsed, sometimes moved. Love runs deeply through these poems, especially in its darker incarnations, where love and hate become different sides of the same coin. There’s definitely horror here, but there’s beauty, too.

Quality varies in all anthologies, but the overall quality of these poems was stelar. That being said, there were a few poems in particular that really stayed with me. A few of my favorite pieces were:


“We” by Morgan Sylvia
“It Hurts When I Breathe” by Mercedes M. Yardley
“Sanctification” by Amanda Kirby
“With Blood” by Jennifer Crow
“Outside In” by Dalena Storm
“Zombification” by Roni Stinger
“Regeneration/Collapse” by Tiffany Morris
“Amestris” by Shira Haus


This collection is recommended for fans of poetry, and highly recommended for fans of dark poetry and body horror. Look for it in April, 2022.

I was given an ARC of the collection by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Under Her Skin is the first volume in Black Spot Books “A Women in Horror Poetry Collection”. It pulls together dozens of women who are passionate about both poetry and horror to put together a book of “dark verse and lyrical prose”.

The collection prides itself in having poems from trans women, cis women, and non-binary femmes. I love seeing inclusivity in horror. Especially a collection centered around body horror. It brings to light the struggles that different women face. The discussion of gender dysphoria is particularly interesting because it’s not something that I’ve gone through and I struggle with trying to understand what my boyfriend feels at times. This put some of that into perspective and, for that, I am eternally grateful.

However, that’s one of the few kind things I have to say about this book.

Let’s start with the good… ish.

In the midst of muddy poetry, there are a few standout pieces. Had the collection had more pieces like these, I think it could have been saved. So, save your time and flip through to read:

It Hurts When I Breathe by Mercedes M. Yardley
Sanctification by Amanda Kirby
Smile by Nico Bell
What the Dead Girl is Trying to Say Through What’s Left of her Mouth by Lindsay King-Miller
Harm by Emily Ruth Verona
When You by Miriam H. Harrison
Outside of these six poems, I found myself wishing the book would end faster.

I feel like very few of the women included in this collection have ever written poetry before. I don’t claim to be a poet, but I am an avid consumer of poetry. I love poetry that tells stories and paints pictures.

This collection… it felt as though flowery words were sprinkled into poems to sound pretty without any thought for how these words fit into painting a picture. I often found myself pulled out of the story a poem was attempting to tell because I would stumble over a word that just didn’t feel as though it fit.

The collection was definitely about body horror. But instead of painting pictures, it through image after image of gore and rot. There was nothing poetic about much of the writing and I genuinely think this may need to back to the drawing board to be reworked.

I can’t recommend this book. The two stars are simply for the six poems that stood out and were, genuinely, good.

Don’t waste your time with this one.

NetGalley provided an ARC in exchange for my honest review

This sounded interesting but missed the mark for me. If you enjoy horror, symbolism, and bodily functions then you will love this. Most poems felt like the same poem over and over with little added to the discussion. They were extremely gruesome and dealt more with the outer body than the thoughts/emotions (for the most part). It left me feeling like they were all missing the spark poetry has.

I enjoyed "What the Dead Girl is Trying to Say Through What's Left of Her Mouth" by Lindsay King-Miller. That poem had a good balance of gore and expression. But overall, I found myself bored and did not like the word choice.

New favourite poetry/short fiction collection, hands down!

Even from the editor's note at the beginning I knew I was going to love the tone of the book. And then getting to experience the incredible writing from so many talented authors was amazing.

The language used was so dark and luscious in its descriptions of body horror. It pulled no punches with it's rage and feminist themes.

I pre-ordered a physical copy as soon as I finished the last page. I think that shows how much I enjoyed it more than words.

This collection was... hauntingly beautiful. The prose contained within this book so aptly shows the often horrific experience of navigating the world as a woman. It was, at times, difficult to read - but good art is often hard to consume when it's content rings so profoundly true. One of my favorite collections to date!

*I received an arc by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

This collection sounded so interesting, and it did live up to that. But I have to admit that it was my first time really reading horror poetry and it really wasn’t for me.
The order of the poems were a little unbalanced sometimes; back to back poems with the same theme and topic. I would have liked those to be spread out a little more.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review—as always, thanks so much to Netgalley for sending this to me.

It’s been a long while since I’ve read a poetry collection I’ve really loved, so I was excited to sink my teeth into this one. I tend to find that when reading a compilation like this, you always find a few gems, and I was hoping I’d discover some new poets to check out.

The themes of this collection were fascinating—the concept of the experiences of women and femmes told through the lens of torture and gore and body horror really spoke to me, as I feel like there’s a lot of inherent horror and the macabre in what we think of as the female/feminine experience. There was a lot of interesting and evocative imagery in this collection that made it a really uneasy read, in a good way. I think it knew what it was trying to do and in some ways delivered very well.

That being said, I was pretty underwhelmed with most of the poems. A lot of it is probably due to personal preference, as I have a pretty specific poetic style and voice that I’m fond of and many of the poems here felt very accessible and approachable and pared down. My personal preference these days is for poetry that messes with my head a little bit, that really plays with shape and form, poetry that doesn’t let me in too willingly. I feel like especially given the subject matter, it would have been interesting to see things lean further in that direction. I also felt that most of the best poems were saved for the end, meaning that I spent most of the book feeling distinctly ‘meh’ before there were a handful of works at the end that really spoke to me. Of course, in every poetry collection there will be some that work for every individual reader better than others, but for me the book really saved the best until last and it was a little too late to make up for it.

I also did find there were a lot of repetitive themes, which on one hand is understandable as I feel like certain topics that we largely associate with womanhood/femininity (pregnancy, motherhood, transformation during puberty, sexual assault etc.) naturally bring up these kinds of images. (I’m not really sure how best to describe this. I don’t want to be exclusionary here—to be clear, these are not exclusively female experiences, there are lots of things that go into being a woman and my intention is not to exclude anyone to whom these things don’t apply, and there were other topics in this collection as well, these ones in particular just stood out to me.) To a certain extent I was expecting some topics to come up repeatedly, and certain images and things like that. Blood, violence, gore, body horror. I did, however, feel like a lot of the poems felt very similar. You could give ten poets a prompt and have them do entirely different things with it, but here it felt like a lot of the poems were very close to one another and there wasn’t as much distinction in some of the voices. I suppose if you think of the book as a collective experience then that cohesion works well, however. It’s clear a lot of these feelings are shared by many people and there’s definitely a sense of connectedness in the book.

To sum up, this was an interesting collection, I really liked the theme and there were a lot of harrowing and unnerving and uncanny works in here, but I don’t think any of the poems massively stood out to me, and I didn’t have strong feelings about it on the whole. 3 stars.

First and foremost, I'd like to express my gratitude to Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this copy.
Disclaimer: This review is solely based on my own opinion.
I'm a huge fan of poetry books, but this poetry ebook didn't help me feel as If I was reading poetry. It's almost as though I can state that the majority of the poetry wasn't intended for me. I had high hopes, but they were unfortunately disappointed by the end.

Great collection and quite a creepy and spooky read. I'm not a huge poetry fan but I love horror so I was excited to see a horror poetry collection that I can enjoy.

An uneven but compelling collection of horror poetry by women. Standouts include "Every Morning" by Aimee Lowenstern, "Regeneration/Collapse" by Tiffany Morris, "The Carrion Flowers" by Morgan Sylvia, and and my absolute favorite, "Amestris" by Shira Haus. The central theme connecting the text is women's bodies as the object of as well as source of horror and revulsion, to both themselves and others.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this collection of poems, all of them being exactly as the description describes. It’s not often you find a poetry book that entirely offers what it says it will contain.

The poems are grotesque and beautifully honest. I think this collection would be touching for almost anyone, especially for women. There is relatability on almost every page, especially for those who have endured some form of trauma.

So many poems about these topics speak of becoming empowered, being saddened, being hurt, very normal emotions, but are done so in a way that is lighter and gentler. This collection stands out because of that brutual honest, even sometimes taking on rage and despair in it’s rawest form.

My one hesitation, and this is no fault to any editors or the poets, but so many of the poems contain the word “sinew.” It just got terribly repetitive and I eventually got annoyed after the fifth time I saw that word. With the subject and the way these topics are presented, I’m not surprised that word made its way in there so frequently.

Overall, it is enjoyable, and thought and emotion provoking. The poems I marked that made a particular impression on me are, “Designer Girls” and “I Cut Away The Parts That Offend You” by Elsa M. Carruthers, “Something That Needs Destroyed” by Linda M. Crate, “These Men Are All One Monster” by Cassondra Windwalker, “My Tainted Touch” by Mary Rojette, “Outside In” by Dalena Storm, and “Conception” by EV Knight. I will be recommending this to all of my friends who enjoy this genre!

The poems were dark and gruesome, which is what I was hoping for. However, I think it just won’t on for a bit too long. It got to a point about 60% in where I was bored. The poetry was well done, but there’s just a limit.