The Saint of Witches

Everything humans don't know, they namedark matter.Everything they fearvindictive god.I've never been so hungry,but let me tell you a secret.To become a ghost,you have to starve for it.

I read quite a bit of horror poetry, and I especially love horror poetry with feminist themes and queerness and witchcraft, so naturally, I was so excited to check out Avra Margariti's debut collection, The Saint of Witches.

There are some absolutely gorgeous poems in this collection, with my two favorites being the above-quoted ‘On the Genesis of Ghosts', as well as ‘The Thing About Stars'. There are pieces featuring queer love, the mistreatment witches and those mistaken as such have been forced to suffer throughout the years, and so much more.

There are also poems in this collection about the desire to remain childless, which isn't something that I can relate to in any way (as many of you know, I'm a mother and very happy to be one ♥), but I felt like I needed to point it out because I know many of my friends wish to remain childless and would love to see themselves represented in this collection!

Unfortunately, the book as a whole was a little bit of a rollercoaster for me. I tried breaking the collection up into a few short reading sessions here and there to avoid dwelling upon it too much, but there's not a solid feeling of continuity throughout the collection, so I wasn't able to devour it in one go (which is my preferred method of reading poetry collections). That's very much a “me”-specific issue as a poetry reader, and I'm certain it won't impede the experience of many others who read this book!

Overall, The Saint of Witches is a great debut poetry collection and I enjoyed my time spent with it. I recommend checking it out if you enjoy horror poetry, and I look forward to reading more from Avra in the future!

✨ Content warnings for: (from the author's own notes) violence, blood, mutilation, attempted or referenced execution (by drowning, hanging, burning), child and animal death (non-graphic), suicide, loss of autonomy/control, imprisonment

Thank you to the author for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

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