On the Subject of Blackberries by Stephanie M. Wytovich
Raw Dog Screaming Press (September 2023)
128 pages; hardcover $24.95
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous magazines and anthologies such as Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. Her newest poetry collection is On the Subject of Blackberries.
On the Subject of Blackberries is a collection of poems that the author describes as “meditations on female rage, postpartum depression, compulsion, and intrusive thoughts. They pull from periods of sleep deprivation, soul exhaustion, and nightmarish delusions, and each is left untitled, a nod to the stream-of-conscious mind of a new mother.” This is a collection of horror poetry, therefore, grounded in the reality of a new mother, but through a lens of myth. Using found poetry techniques and bibliomancy, Wytovich created a collection layered in images. The poems here read as spells, incantations almost, but dark and surreal.
Into an air of change, I lay
like fog refusing the clouds
underneath my boots, my hand
held against the thin things
with splintered hair,
their watchful gaze
a sliced shadow on creeping walls,
a crooked ocean waving
to a doll with your face.
These are nightmares illustrated, dreams that one begs to wake from. The confusion and grief is palpable in these lines, found in the shadows that Wytovich explores with her language.
As if Wytovich’s poetry weren’t worth the price of admission itself, the presentation of this book is really quite something to behold. It’s a hardcover text with Victorian illustrations, but filled with poems of magic and rage, steeped in darkness. The whole aesthetic of the book makes for an experience for the reader, almost like they were prying into the grimoire of some haunted witch.
Stephanie M. Wytovich is a name that every horror reader should be familiar with. They are an outstanding author and editor with too many accomplishments and awards to list. It should be no surprise that On the Subject of Blackberries is a solid collection of poetry because Wytovich is a solid poet. However, this book is so different than previous collections, in ways both intimately personal and deeply magical, that it’s almost like discovering a completely new poet. If you know Wytovich’s work, then you are in for a dark surprise that is gripping and haunting and elegiacally beautiful.
If you have not read a book by Stephanie M. Wytovich, this is the book to correct that mistake with, because this book needs to be on the shelf of every horror reader.
