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The Withering: Poems of Supernatural Horror

$15.99

Image of The Withering: Poems of Supernatural Horror
  • Image of The Withering: Poems of Supernatural Horror
  • Image of The Withering: Poems of Supernatural Horror
  • Image of The Withering: Poems of Supernatural Horror
  • Image of The Withering: Poems of Supernatural Horror

A TOR NIGHTFIRE SELECTION FOR TOP 10 HORROR POETRY COLLECTIONS OF 2020

From the author of Diary of a Sorceress (Hippocampus Press, 2017) comes The Withering.

In these poems, Ashley Dioses evokes an unrelenting sequence of raw, carnal images sure to delight all fans of the morbid and the macabre. Down frightful corridors both internal and external, the poetess leads us through the cobwebs of the natural world, through the entrance to a realm of sorcery, demons, and the undead. Emerging from this twilight Otherworld, harrowed by haunting sensations, we find ourselves questioning sanity as we stumble upon a surgical suite filled with delectable selections of bloody delights. Treat yourself to some cemetery necromancy, or sit back and enjoy a nice cloying sorbet with The Withering.

Cover art and interior illustrations by Mutartis Boswell. Foreword by John Shirley.

Trade paperback - 6 x 9 inches - 140 pages

“. . . poetry from a night-blooming blossom . . . these poems are a wild view into the mind of a talented young woman, throbbing with incantatory power, and making this reader wonder if she will eventually become the Poet Laureate of the modern Goth subculture.” — John Shirley, author of Wetbones and Demons, from his foreword

“With these verses, Ashley Dioses weaves together the incantatory rhythm of a witch’s spell. Luminous language is contorted to reveal dark images, connected to traditional Gothic works and yet not limited by them. The mysterious is entwined with the playful, and the result will lure you to a very beautiful and disturbing place.” — S. P. Miskowski, author of The Worst Is Yet to Come

The Withering by Ashely Dioses is a showcase of rich, gothic delights: an ecstasy of love and life lost. Dioses paints bleak and exotic, lyric hellscapes and lush narratives, often describing eternal, supernatural suffering and vengeance from the inside out. The subtext of so many of these dark, often wrathful poems presents the reader with a plaintive, deeply human question: what am I? Ultimately, the poetic persona empowers herself through an act of self-discovery, answering her own question, exultantly, by addressing the reader (and perhaps Nature itself): ‘I am your Monster.’” — Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism and co-editor-in-chief of Vastarien: A Literary Journal

“With Diary of a Sorceress Ashley Dioses established her place at the top of the Weird Poetry field. With The Withering she shows that she has actually been there for years; like one of the succubi in her poems, lying in wait, ready to dazzle and destroy us. In the modern era, Weird Poetry has rarely been so sublime.” — Obadiah Baird, editor of The Audient Void: A Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark Fantasy

“The worlds of The Withering are bleak, black-white places. The poems of this collection are glimmering, bright-clean bones picked dry, clean and neat. They come from a visceral, bleeding place, and expose a raw, powerful feeling. Guillotines, glitter and even a wry sense of humor, Ashley Dioses’ second collection shows just as much talent as the first.” — S. L. Edwards, author of Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts


Excerpt:

Into the Dark I Came

Into the dark I came,
A place no eyes can see.
I wait there without shame,
Till life just cannot be.
I’m one with burning stars,
And blackness of the night.
I have erased my scars—
I died without a fight.

© 2020 by Ashley Dioses. All rights reserved.

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