This, I found to be, a darker collection of poetry. I enjoyed it thoroughly nonetheless. I definitely think it's worth the read.

I definitely liked the premise of this collection. The artwork within the collection was really nice and I loved the cover art, as well. I think the collection could have benefited from having a more cohesive theme and possibly more poems within the collection. I liked the diction and syntax of the poems and would love to see more developed work from this author.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this in the beginning. Upon realizing that this is a collection of found poetry using Stephen King's The Plant, it added a new layer to the poems. I particularly enjoyed "Little Ghost" and "This Whole Business" from this collection. I think this style of poetry might not be for everyone, but I would encourage readers to give it a chance as I think this style is an interesting one, especially once you understand the process/style. I also feel like the illustrations complemented the poems well.

Thank you so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Upon picking up this book I didn´t realise it was `found poetry`, which basically means it´s poetry formed by taking elements/scentences etc from an already existing text and recontextualising them into poem-form. This style doesn't tend to work for me, and it didn't in this case either.
These poems felt like what they technically are to me; a collection of words, stripped from their intended context and left completely hollow and disjointed because of it.
I got nothing out of reading this, so can't justify anything else than a 1-star-rating. Credits where credits are due though; the book is wonderfully designed with beautiful black-and-white illustrations supporting the text. Still: I came for the poems, which didn't deliver.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
I don't enjoy spreading negative reviews, purely based on my opinion, regarding Indie-author's work. Therefore this review will only appear on Netgalley, and won't be promoted on Goodreads or my personal blog.

Encontré que estaba muy desorganizado y carecía de estructura o significado en el flujo general de la colección. Al final del libro, el autor mencionó que todos los poemas estaban compuestos en realidad por frases aleatorias de otras obras. Esa fue una idea completamente nueva para mí. No creo que este enfoque funcionara bien para esta colección en particular. No entendí muchos de los poemas ni los mensajes que intentaban transmitir. Tras leer la nota del autor, se vuelve bastante evidente que se ensamblaron oraciones de otros trabajos.

Aunque sabía que había algo que conectaba los poemas, me distraje constantemente tratando de encontrar esa conexión. Personalmente, no creo que perjudique la experiencia cambiar el momento en que se revela la conexión.

This was a bizarre, weird and entertaining collection of poetry and musings in a horror/sci fi setting. This would suit someone who was a huge fan of sci fi writing. It has the feeling of a cult book and most of the verses were very entertaining.

By the authors own words, this is a collection of “found poetry” (but also includes some really breathtaking illustrations with gothic and natural imagery.

It is a very quick read, but made my gothic heart soar.

I did not understood anything .
I'm not good with poetry I have to read it for my degree but even then I don't get it .
I feel like I shouldn't rate something that I just don't understand but I have to give a rating . I will I've it a 2 stars rating because it is not bad by any mean but I cannot give higher

There were some quote here and there that I liked but the poems by themselves were not my cup of tea.

Thanks again NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to discover this poems.

An interesting collection of poems, though I enjoyed the illustrations more. I also liked that this was lost poetry and found myself learning more about this style of work. I wish this was longer however. 3.5/5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a review copy.

This is a collection of found poetry - poetry created from eliminating words in an existing work. In this case, it's an unfinished epistolary novel of Stephen King's called The Plant. I've always been interested in this style. It's amazing what can be reimagined from what already exists. The poetry is lush and evocative and I enjoyed the book a lot. 4 stars

This has a good premise but it feels a little .. all over the place? Maybe the poetry isn’t for me so in turn I hope it finds the right audience.

While I read this collection of poetry extremely fast, I enjoyed what I read a lot. I was confused by some of these poems but it did not take away from the collection as a whole. When I realized it was only 66 pages long I found myself wanting more. I did feel disconnected from the poems most of the time but, that is okay. I will definitely give this poet another chance at some point in the future!

This is a fascinating book. A number of years ago, Stephen King published an unfinished novel online and told fans--and detractors--"have at it." Writers were free to use the material in any way they wanted. Author Blythe took that manuscript and used found/erasure/remixed poetry--a technique of taking previously existing text and using it whole cloth in portions and/or erasing/blacking out/moving words and phrases--to concoct this volume of plant-centric poems. I began reading before I knew this, and was struck by the gritty, unvarnished language of the text, how desperate and awful and nasty its world was, and at the same time how compelling the text could be, even as a winced away from imagery that made my stomach flip around. Then I read that the text was drawn from King's, and it made me think about writing and how the writing world assigns credit. The words are originally King's, but it's Blythe who manipulates them in interesting and often very non-King-like ways. The phrases left untouched are by King, but Blythe finds ways of recasting them and changing meaning. It's a thought-provoking medium, and book. (If you're interested in the legalities, as I know some of you will be, here's some info: https://www.ilnipinsider.com/2021/04/entitled-to-copyright-erasure-a-fair-use-search-for-a-derived-yet-transformational-work/.)

thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read this arc. this is one of my lower rated books. not all types of poetry and for everyone, and i don’t think this one was for me. i do like found poetry and dark poetry but something about the way this was brought together feels rushed, chaotic, and almost as if it has no true purpose. i liked maybe 3 of them, but for the most part i did find myself connecting or enjoying the collection of poems in this book.

Unfortunately not for me. Maybe I simply could not connect to the themes but I kept reading the poems without engaging with them.

I enjoyed this collection of dark botany poems. As with most poetry collections, some flowed and made more sense than others. You don't find out until the authours note that this is a collection of "found poetry" from Stephen King's 'The Plant'. I think this would be helpful for readers to know at the beginning of the collection. I also think it would have been interesting to see the poems with the black/white out pages. Loved the title and cover art!

I have fallen down the rabbit hole of found poetry. This was a great read. This is a poetically poisonous collection of wicked poetry! This collection was the perfect thing to get me ready for spooky season. I enjoyed every poem and this it was great to pick up daily and read a poem. The illustrations were beautiful as well!

I do enjoy horror poetry and how it manages to be graphic and quite unnerving. This collection was partially horror and fantasy. Many of the these had a unique structure and many were memorable. There were a few i wasnt keen on however for a collection of its kind it will appeal to readers of this kind of poetry.

This was a 2.5* read for me, although to some extent the fault is mine. I saw “horror” and “poetry” and got all excited, but failed to realize that this collection is composed entirely of found poems.

Intellectually, I think this is a compelling exercise, but the poems didn’t make me feel much. I feel like this is often the case for me when it comes to found poetry. Yes, I can analyze the meaning, which in this case forms a semi-coherent story in which the narrator is a palimpsest, just at the poems themselves are a form of palimpsest in a way. But just because I can think about these poems doesn’t make me feel much, if anything, about them. This is 100% to do with how I enjoy poetry, and what I want from the experience of reading a collection. Not for me, but I think fans of Stephen King in particular (who wrote the MS in which these poems were found) will enjoy the nesting-doll effect of works within works.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book as an ARC.

[note: I shared this review on GoodReads and StoryGraph on the book’s, but cannot share links from the apps using iOS.]

Horror and poetry, a combo of two my favorite things to read, so I was looking forward to this. I always like to say with poetry, it's VERY individualized as to how a reader is going to interpret and understand any given poem. Sometimes it clicks, sometimes it doesn't. It's all about how the reader can connect with the words on the page, even more so than a novel simply because there's usually fewer words to make an impact.

I enjoyed somewhere between a third and a half of the poems in this collection from Andrea Blythe, and some I just couldn't find a connection to. At the end of the collection, the author shares the inspiration and intent of this collection, which stemmed from a found poetry event, The Poeming.

I was already familiar with found poetry, so learning this after reading the collection made some of the disjointed and the "this doesn't make sense" feelings I got in some pieces make a bit more sense. I think if the collection had been introduced with the author's notes about the creation of these poems, it could put the reader in a better frame of mind for attempting to understand some of the pieces.