kristy bowen | writer & book artist

Horror in all forms is rife with landscapes, whether its the darkened and shadowy moors of gothic novels or the sweep of endless prairie land. Dark forests or unusually tempestuous seas.  There's something deeply unsettling about a landscape that watches you back. I've been thinking a lot lately about how horror poetry uses landscape—not just as a backdrop for terror, but as the terror itself. We're so used to horror stories where the monster jumps out from behind a tree or lurks in a dark corner. But what happens when the tree is the monster? When the dark corner is just the beginning of an endless, malevolent space that wants to swallow you whole? Horror poetry has this incredible ability to make the natural world feel fundamentally wrong. It's not about jump scares or gore. It's about that slow, creeping realization that the ground beneath your feet, the horizon line, the very air you're breathing—none of it is on your side. The landscape often isn't j...