The Saint of Witches by Avra Margariti
92 pages
Published 2022
Read from January 3 to January 4
Rating: 4 out of 5
Avra is one of the rising stars of SFF, particularly in the realm of speculative poetry. This collection is their full-length debut, a mix of original and previously published horror, fantasy, and gothic poetry, with murmurs of deep space and the abyssal sea.
The poems here are queerly sumptuous and vengeful, rotting right off the bone. Ossified hearts, gravediggers, bloated bodies, and putrid apples float by in morbid delectation. Children take delight in destroying the hidden laboratories that had shaped them. Vampires and angels alike sink their teeth into skin. Past lives and future incarnations flutter and rage. Crones, monsters, and demons escape pyres and out from under beds, flay flesh and mix paint from bones, repaying cruelty for cruelty in age-old arithmetic. It’s a swirling cauldron of ideas and imagery that left me breathless.
Some particular standouts for me:
"Witches of Fur and Teeth"
"In the Ever-Night"
"When They Come Back"
"Behold, a Rabbit-Footed Boy"
"Cherry Wine"
"The Birds and the Beasts"
"Lady Vitriol"
"Sugar and Spice"
"The Thing About Stars"
"Darkroom Liaisons"
"Until You Reach Me"
"Blessed Is the Final Girl"
"Mazzeratura or, The Penalty of the Sack"
"The Saint of Witches"
But really, almost all the poems here are all-time bangers.
If I could sum up the mood of this book in two lines, it would be from the close of "Mazzeratura or, The Penalty of the Sack":
They want us to drown, the girl says,
but we float.
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