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Cradleland of Parasites
Bram Stoker Award-winner Sara Tantlinger delivers her CRADLELAND OF PARASITES, a harrowing and darkly gorgeous collection of poetry chronicling the death and devastation of one of history's greatest horrors: The Black Plague.
103 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2020
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736 people want to read
About the author
Sara Tantlinger
68 books388 followersSara Tantlinger is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes, and the Stoker-nominated works To Be Devoured, Cradleland of Parasites, and Not All Monsters. Along with being a mentor for the HWA Mentorship Program, she is also a co-organizer for the HWA Pittsburgh Chapter. She embraces all things macabre and can be found lurking in graveyards, at saratantlinger.com and on Instagram @inkychaotics
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
November 18, 2025
read : 8th of jan. 2023 - 8th of jan. 2023
4.5
⭑⭑⭑⭑ 1/2
4.5
⭑⭑⭑⭑ 1/2
January 5, 2021
A poetry collection inspired by the bubonic plague released during the actual Coronavirus pandemic of 2020? How prophetically macabre.
If just reading this review or the subject matter of these poems have you thinking, "It's too soon!"
You need to step away from this book.
Tantlinger does not hold back.
"In the name of Pestilence, I ride, / your scared lord of contagion / bow down beneath divine damnation"
Some poems are told as the voice of the plague itself. Others from the perspective of the dying host. Still others as the collectors of the dead or the doctors or children...
...all of them carry the weight and severity of man vs. virus (or worm).
If you are a reader easily triggered by body horror or vivid word pictures of agonizing death, putrid decay, corpses, burrowing worms, bodily fluids, symptoms of disease--you might want to skip this one.
But as for me and my kind, this is how we cope with the horrors we face in real life. I loved taking this journey with Sara. It was actually quite comforting knowing that disease is mankind's oldest and most formidable foe.
If just reading this review or the subject matter of these poems have you thinking, "It's too soon!"
You need to step away from this book.
Tantlinger does not hold back.
"In the name of Pestilence, I ride, / your scared lord of contagion / bow down beneath divine damnation"
Some poems are told as the voice of the plague itself. Others from the perspective of the dying host. Still others as the collectors of the dead or the doctors or children...
...all of them carry the weight and severity of man vs. virus (or worm).
If you are a reader easily triggered by body horror or vivid word pictures of agonizing death, putrid decay, corpses, burrowing worms, bodily fluids, symptoms of disease--you might want to skip this one.
But as for me and my kind, this is how we cope with the horrors we face in real life. I loved taking this journey with Sara. It was actually quite comforting knowing that disease is mankind's oldest and most formidable foe.
March 28, 2021
"What comes after all of this,
in the quiet of the night when stars
shine again, sparkling in the sky
constant reminders of life's gifts,
what comes after all of this?"
This was a very visceral, macabre collection of plague poetry! It's a quick read, and delightfully dark.
in the quiet of the night when stars
shine again, sparkling in the sky
constant reminders of life's gifts,
what comes after all of this?"
This was a very visceral, macabre collection of plague poetry! It's a quick read, and delightfully dark.
October 26, 2020
** Edited as review is now live on Kendall Reviews! **
I’ve been working harder to read dark poetry. When Sara Tantlinger announced her next collection, ‘Cradleland of Parasites,’ would be inspired by the Black Death, I was very intrigued. When it was offered for review, I actually paused to decide if I wanted to read it, worried I may not be an intelligent enough reader for it, but now, after having finished it, I’m so happy I took it.
What I liked: Like all of the other amazing poets I’ve read recently, Tantlinger thrives on making you feel repulsed in as few words as possible. The poems in this collection are grime-covered with mold growing through the cracks. Time and time again I pictured stacks of burning bodies in the streets, while dirt-covered homeless people scavenged on the dead’s belongings. These poems are powerful if not grotesquely bleak. Highlights for me were ‘Her Face of Bone Needles,’ ‘Death Ships,’ ‘Rattus Rattus,’ ‘The Corpses Burn,’ ‘Bloodletting,’ and ‘Cradleland of Parasites.’ Saying that, pretty much every single poem will kick you in the face and make you spit out blood.
What I didn’t like: God, another of these. Nothing! OK! Ha! Tantlinger has created such a visual group of poems that it’s hard to find anything that put me off. Her way with words is superb.
Why you should buy it: This group of poems will get your mind racing and I suspect a large number of you who read this, will do exactly what I did once done – go and Google “Black Plague” and watch in awe as her words come to life with old descriptions and illustrations. Just outstanding work and I’m jumping immediately into her novella ‘To Be Devoured.’
I’ve been working harder to read dark poetry. When Sara Tantlinger announced her next collection, ‘Cradleland of Parasites,’ would be inspired by the Black Death, I was very intrigued. When it was offered for review, I actually paused to decide if I wanted to read it, worried I may not be an intelligent enough reader for it, but now, after having finished it, I’m so happy I took it.
What I liked: Like all of the other amazing poets I’ve read recently, Tantlinger thrives on making you feel repulsed in as few words as possible. The poems in this collection are grime-covered with mold growing through the cracks. Time and time again I pictured stacks of burning bodies in the streets, while dirt-covered homeless people scavenged on the dead’s belongings. These poems are powerful if not grotesquely bleak. Highlights for me were ‘Her Face of Bone Needles,’ ‘Death Ships,’ ‘Rattus Rattus,’ ‘The Corpses Burn,’ ‘Bloodletting,’ and ‘Cradleland of Parasites.’ Saying that, pretty much every single poem will kick you in the face and make you spit out blood.
What I didn’t like: God, another of these. Nothing! OK! Ha! Tantlinger has created such a visual group of poems that it’s hard to find anything that put me off. Her way with words is superb.
Why you should buy it: This group of poems will get your mind racing and I suspect a large number of you who read this, will do exactly what I did once done – go and Google “Black Plague” and watch in awe as her words come to life with old descriptions and illustrations. Just outstanding work and I’m jumping immediately into her novella ‘To Be Devoured.’
September 17, 2020
Sara Tantlinger is brilliant. I said it and I will stand by it! She has a knack for creating such illustrative and beautiful poetry while centralizing/being influenced by such dark horrors. In the case of Cradleland of Parasites, that horror is THE BLACK PLAGUE. And believe me, we need some magical horror poetry about a plague right now... I devoured this collection quicker than I anticipated... but I could not stop myself! I know I will be re-reading this collection and there are definite poems that stand out for me:
"The Demon of Constantinople," "Her Face of Bones and Needles," "Second Pandemic," "Crimson Mercy," "The Corpses Burn," "The King's Ulcer," "Blackbirds, Black Death," and "Island of Ghosts."
There is not a single poem in here that I did not fawn over, but those were some of my favorites. I highly recommend this collection. And if you are still on the fence about horror poetry... here is your chance to start with a powerful collection! 5 stars!
"The Demon of Constantinople," "Her Face of Bones and Needles," "Second Pandemic," "Crimson Mercy," "The Corpses Burn," "The King's Ulcer," "Blackbirds, Black Death," and "Island of Ghosts."
There is not a single poem in here that I did not fawn over, but those were some of my favorites. I highly recommend this collection. And if you are still on the fence about horror poetry... here is your chance to start with a powerful collection! 5 stars!
August 23, 2020
Beginning millennia ago and working forward, Cradleland of Parasites paints a poetic picture of sicknesses both forgotten and infamous, a history lesson that is both warning and alluring. This is one of those horrors that's hard to look at, but you can't look away from. Read aloud, every line flows smooth off the tongue. There's a perverse joy to each poem, a sense that this should've been fun, and yet you're having the time of your life, even when the past reminds us a little too much of the present. Sara Tantlinger's poems capture a long and still-going story of sickness and inhumanity.
The plague was never so beautiful.
The plague was never so beautiful.
December 27, 2020
"Remember that you will die,
so that you do not forget to live."
Sara Tantlinger is a master of poetry. Her writing is so damn captivating.
Cradleland is equal parts beautiful and grotesque (which is basically my aesthetic). I learned more about the Black Plague through Tantlinger's poetry than I ever learned in school (sorry to my teachers). Each poem is so well crafted. You will squirm and you will wonder what is wrong with humanity while ALSO wondering why this collection is so relevant in 2020.
I had to bust out my sticky flags for this one because so many quotes spoke to me.
so that you do not forget to live."
Sara Tantlinger is a master of poetry. Her writing is so damn captivating.
Cradleland is equal parts beautiful and grotesque (which is basically my aesthetic). I learned more about the Black Plague through Tantlinger's poetry than I ever learned in school (sorry to my teachers). Each poem is so well crafted. You will squirm and you will wonder what is wrong with humanity while ALSO wondering why this collection is so relevant in 2020.
I had to bust out my sticky flags for this one because so many quotes spoke to me.
October 7, 2020
Cradleland of Parasites shows why Tantlinger is such a remarkable writer of historical horror: grounded in deep research, she has a talent for making the dark wonder of times past feel real and omnipresent and contemporary -- as if mankind were fated to dark days and evil ways forever. She can take something as distant from us as a medieval plague and make it reach out to touch us today like a cold dead hand from the grave grabbing hold of your ankle, contaminating you even if you manage to break free.
The treatment of disease as a kind of omnivorous god over mankind is very disturbing, and Tantlinger succeeds at generating not only physical creeps, but philosophical shivers. It isn’t often that a book cracks history open like this, reveling in the science of anguish and the unknowable needs of the parasite, and I just loved the dark places this book took me, which felt altogether other and unique. I’m very glad I got the advanced special hardcover edition, too, which includes uncanny photographs of a plague doctor at work in a beautiful but harrowing realm, matching the tone of dark elegance that we feel in the poetry perfectly. Cradleland of Parasites is a stunning achievement, pitch perfect in its black mood and dark philosophy, and I’ve never read anything like it before.
In Cradleland, which was published during the Covid-19 pandemic but has nothing to do with it, the horror is more epic in scope than Tantlinger’s previous (and award-winning) work of historical horror poetry, The Devil’s Dreamland. That book embodied infamous serial killer HH Holmes as a kind of cultural artifact of evil, slithering beneath all the optimistic progress of the World’s Fair in 1890’s Chicago to commit heinous crimes in his murder castle. In this title, the poet reaches back centuries to explore evil in an almost timeless, omnipresent way. If Holmes were the worm that writhes beneath the rock of modernism, here Tantlinger lifts up the very bedrock of the planet to explore what writhes beneath in a frank and often objective-feeling way, getting at the larger spirits at work in the universe. The language is so rich that it does more than any scientific history ever could. Her poems make beautiful that which would otherwise disgust us, and she does this so artfully in Cradleland that what she describes enthralls and allows some very dark ideas to conjure beauty and wonder in the reader’s imagination.
While the history Tantlinger delves into is clearly well-researched and deep in this book -- which mostly, but not only, delves into the Black Plague of medieval times -- the malignancy of disease she writes about feels vast and timeless, and Tantlinger’s creepy and confrontational poetry magically brings that impossible scope to life. It is punishingly frank regarding man’s frailty as it considers the omnipotence of despair. The plague is personified often in this amazing collection of poems, and that plague is pitiless and harrowing and at times beautifully grotesque. Reading over 100 pages of poetry about disease’s constant indifference to mankind’s suffering across the centuries gets a little depressing, to be honest, but the poet’s way with words keeps you engaged and awe-struck anyway, wondering about the secret realms and desires of pestilence, and enthralled by the bold perspective on life and death that she constructs as she goes.
There are interesting characters encountered in this book’s pages, from plague doctors to monarchs to lab researchers to families suffering extremes, but these are not narratives of survival and the people here are subordinated to the inevitability of rot, contagion and demise. As one poem laments in its recurring line, “How much death will god allow?” The answer this book gives is hazy, but may be that disease loves us more than any god. Language is the only life preserver here, actually -- and it’s a slippery one to hold on to, as the sadness of man’s fate threatens to pull you under on every page, even as Tantlinger’s evocative language style lifts you up and injects you with a sense of dark wonder that keeps you reading. There's a pessimism at play in her approach that is reminiscent of the work of Thomas Ligotti. Like that author’s work, Tantlinger’s book gives you the sense that we deserve our suffering, that we are fools to think otherwise, and perhaps it would have been better if we had never existed at all. Yet the book also manages to build up the reader’s respect for disease, validating our dread while celebrating it with wonder, while raising our awareness of the precariousness of life in surprising ways. Indeed, there are touches of optimism in this book, churning in a kind of Gothic beauty beneath the surface of so many burst buboes and boils, which makes this “bubonic litany” such a unique and original collection.
Highly recommended. The ideas in Cradleland of Parasites will eat at you, and the book will leave you wrecked.
The treatment of disease as a kind of omnivorous god over mankind is very disturbing, and Tantlinger succeeds at generating not only physical creeps, but philosophical shivers. It isn’t often that a book cracks history open like this, reveling in the science of anguish and the unknowable needs of the parasite, and I just loved the dark places this book took me, which felt altogether other and unique. I’m very glad I got the advanced special hardcover edition, too, which includes uncanny photographs of a plague doctor at work in a beautiful but harrowing realm, matching the tone of dark elegance that we feel in the poetry perfectly. Cradleland of Parasites is a stunning achievement, pitch perfect in its black mood and dark philosophy, and I’ve never read anything like it before.
In Cradleland, which was published during the Covid-19 pandemic but has nothing to do with it, the horror is more epic in scope than Tantlinger’s previous (and award-winning) work of historical horror poetry, The Devil’s Dreamland. That book embodied infamous serial killer HH Holmes as a kind of cultural artifact of evil, slithering beneath all the optimistic progress of the World’s Fair in 1890’s Chicago to commit heinous crimes in his murder castle. In this title, the poet reaches back centuries to explore evil in an almost timeless, omnipresent way. If Holmes were the worm that writhes beneath the rock of modernism, here Tantlinger lifts up the very bedrock of the planet to explore what writhes beneath in a frank and often objective-feeling way, getting at the larger spirits at work in the universe. The language is so rich that it does more than any scientific history ever could. Her poems make beautiful that which would otherwise disgust us, and she does this so artfully in Cradleland that what she describes enthralls and allows some very dark ideas to conjure beauty and wonder in the reader’s imagination.
While the history Tantlinger delves into is clearly well-researched and deep in this book -- which mostly, but not only, delves into the Black Plague of medieval times -- the malignancy of disease she writes about feels vast and timeless, and Tantlinger’s creepy and confrontational poetry magically brings that impossible scope to life. It is punishingly frank regarding man’s frailty as it considers the omnipotence of despair. The plague is personified often in this amazing collection of poems, and that plague is pitiless and harrowing and at times beautifully grotesque. Reading over 100 pages of poetry about disease’s constant indifference to mankind’s suffering across the centuries gets a little depressing, to be honest, but the poet’s way with words keeps you engaged and awe-struck anyway, wondering about the secret realms and desires of pestilence, and enthralled by the bold perspective on life and death that she constructs as she goes.
There are interesting characters encountered in this book’s pages, from plague doctors to monarchs to lab researchers to families suffering extremes, but these are not narratives of survival and the people here are subordinated to the inevitability of rot, contagion and demise. As one poem laments in its recurring line, “How much death will god allow?” The answer this book gives is hazy, but may be that disease loves us more than any god. Language is the only life preserver here, actually -- and it’s a slippery one to hold on to, as the sadness of man’s fate threatens to pull you under on every page, even as Tantlinger’s evocative language style lifts you up and injects you with a sense of dark wonder that keeps you reading. There's a pessimism at play in her approach that is reminiscent of the work of Thomas Ligotti. Like that author’s work, Tantlinger’s book gives you the sense that we deserve our suffering, that we are fools to think otherwise, and perhaps it would have been better if we had never existed at all. Yet the book also manages to build up the reader’s respect for disease, validating our dread while celebrating it with wonder, while raising our awareness of the precariousness of life in surprising ways. Indeed, there are touches of optimism in this book, churning in a kind of Gothic beauty beneath the surface of so many burst buboes and boils, which makes this “bubonic litany” such a unique and original collection.
Highly recommended. The ideas in Cradleland of Parasites will eat at you, and the book will leave you wrecked.
January 23, 2021
This is like nothing I’ve ever read. I love it. It’s one part soothing memento mori that really encapsulates the time we are living in, and another part fucking metal slaughterhouse that makes you want to throw up those horns. You would think those two things don’t go together but Sara Tantlinger doesn’t really give them a choice. Masterful. Thanks for writing this.
February 19, 2021
Cradleland of Parasites by Sara Tantlinger is a deeply unsettling collection of poems about the Black Plague.
I’m still very new to trying to focus more on poetry, and I’m so grateful that I gave this one a read, even if I felt like I was torturing myself a bit considering the content and my anxiety around the current pandemic!
This collection, while all focused around the same topic, has such a great variety! It covers viewpoints from those that are sick, those that are in the plague masks, those that deal with the dead and dying, the germs, and so much more.
Some of these poems are eerie, some are heartbreaking, one made me chuckle with it’s one line of humor mixed in with the darkness (Preventative Measures).
The one thing that tiles these all in common are that they do not shy away from the details of the sicknesses. Some in more brutal detail than others.
My favorites from this collection include:
Origin
The Seige of Caffa
Second Pandemic
Village Gravediggers
Cradleland of Parasites
Bills of Mortality
Preventative Measures
Yersinia Pestis
A Universal Constant
Herd Immunity
With the Worm in Her Head
That last one, With the Worm in Her Head, is going to haunt me forever. When I finished reading it, I thought- Okay great, now every time I get a migraine and start losing words… I’m going to think it’s a tapeworm.
My Favorite Passages
there are those who walk on —
silently infectious as contagious ghosts
spreading their haunted air onward.
How will you ever protect anyone
from infections hunger like this,
when you never bothered to shield
the sick and compromised immune systems
around you for the sake of misinformation?
She loses syllables at first,
as if her lips refused to form
a’s and oh’s, later in the day
whole words disappear.
My Final Thoughts
This is a great collection to pick up if you want to spike your anxiety during the current pandemic. There were so many lines that could be tied into the current situation.
A must-read for fans of horror poetry! Go snag a copy of this one today!
I’m still very new to trying to focus more on poetry, and I’m so grateful that I gave this one a read, even if I felt like I was torturing myself a bit considering the content and my anxiety around the current pandemic!
This collection, while all focused around the same topic, has such a great variety! It covers viewpoints from those that are sick, those that are in the plague masks, those that deal with the dead and dying, the germs, and so much more.
Some of these poems are eerie, some are heartbreaking, one made me chuckle with it’s one line of humor mixed in with the darkness (Preventative Measures).
The one thing that tiles these all in common are that they do not shy away from the details of the sicknesses. Some in more brutal detail than others.
My favorites from this collection include:
Origin
The Seige of Caffa
Second Pandemic
Village Gravediggers
Cradleland of Parasites
Bills of Mortality
Preventative Measures
Yersinia Pestis
A Universal Constant
Herd Immunity
With the Worm in Her Head
That last one, With the Worm in Her Head, is going to haunt me forever. When I finished reading it, I thought- Okay great, now every time I get a migraine and start losing words… I’m going to think it’s a tapeworm.
My Favorite Passages
there are those who walk on —
silently infectious as contagious ghosts
spreading their haunted air onward.
How will you ever protect anyone
from infections hunger like this,
when you never bothered to shield
the sick and compromised immune systems
around you for the sake of misinformation?
She loses syllables at first,
as if her lips refused to form
a’s and oh’s, later in the day
whole words disappear.
My Final Thoughts
This is a great collection to pick up if you want to spike your anxiety during the current pandemic. There were so many lines that could be tied into the current situation.
A must-read for fans of horror poetry! Go snag a copy of this one today!
January 31, 2021
There is something so hard to look away from in the idea of plague, especially those that are safely in our past. Sara Tantlinger is one of those authors I can trust implicitly to craft art that I'm going to enjoy. I love her prose, and her poetry is a thing of beauty, tackling this subject from all angles. I recently started a ritual of starting the day with a few poems while I had my coffee, and Cradleland of Parasites was the first collection I picked up. What a visceral, creepy, haunting joy it is. There were so many poems and lines within that struck me, and I took to keeping a notebook with me as I read so I wouldn't mar the pages of this beautiful book. Every poem within worked for me, but here are a few of the ones I found most striking:
Origin (especially that last line)
Village Gravedigger - chilling and haunting
Princess Joan - "...for all skeletons look the same when remains become rotten..."
Scapegoat
Memento Mori
In the Butchered Aftermath
Genome - "I am my own necromancer..."
Herd Immunity - "...that extend like connective lightning"
I'd recommend this to fans of horror and fans of poetry alike.
Origin (especially that last line)
Village Gravedigger - chilling and haunting
Princess Joan - "...for all skeletons look the same when remains become rotten..."
Scapegoat
Memento Mori
In the Butchered Aftermath
Genome - "I am my own necromancer..."
Herd Immunity - "...that extend like connective lightning"
I'd recommend this to fans of horror and fans of poetry alike.
February 18, 2021
I have fallen upon a few plague novels over the course of the pandemic. It's very surreal to read about plagues, pandemics, the history of harsh and fatal diseases while living through a pandemic. It definitely heightens the works that I have been reading lately!
The poems in Cradleland of Parasites center around The Black Plague. Wow, these poems were dark and brutal and beautiful. Some of my favorites were Second Pandemic, Moral Decay, Death Knell, and An Advanced Society.
Cradleland of Parasites was my first poetry collection by Sara Tantlinger. I read and loved her novella To Be Devoured which definitely had a poetic quality to it. I look forward to checking out more from her in the future!
3.5/5 stars
Review copy provided by author
The poems in Cradleland of Parasites center around The Black Plague. Wow, these poems were dark and brutal and beautiful. Some of my favorites were Second Pandemic, Moral Decay, Death Knell, and An Advanced Society.
Cradleland of Parasites was my first poetry collection by Sara Tantlinger. I read and loved her novella To Be Devoured which definitely had a poetic quality to it. I look forward to checking out more from her in the future!
3.5/5 stars
Review copy provided by author
February 19, 2021
I'm not going to beat around the bush; I absolutely love this collection of plague poetry! The writing is beautiful, the imagery is exquisite (though ghastly and disturbing), and the focus on the Black Death is so cool...though a little unnerving considering when I read this (i.e. middle of a pandemic).
There are lots of intriguing overarching topics that span the collection; from the idea that this was either punishment or abandonment by God, to the utter havoc this disease caused in society, to the idea that it killed indiscriminately and leveled social classes. I also love how the author gives us a glimpse into the various perspectives from the time period. We see how the plague affected both prince and pauper alike, and some of my favorite poems are the ones written from the POV of people like the "Village Gravediggers" and the "Brothers of the Dead" (beaked plague doctors). There are also some cool poems that personify the disease as various demons, malicious spirits, and even a horseman of the apocalypse (Pestilence, of course).
It would appear that Tantlinger did her research for this collection. No one could write with such vivid authenticity about buboes, hemorrhaging, and puss otherwise (I hope). It also shows in poems such as "The Siege of Caffa" which is about diseased bodies being launched over city walls during wartime, and "Death Ships," which is about how the plague came to Sicily by boat. Such poems lend another level of weight and authenticity to what is already a well-thought-out collection. So many of these poems had me wanting to spend hours researching the terrifying historical veracity that spawned them.
I could go on and on about the poems in this collection. Like how there's one about people, in their petrified ignorance, who tried killing dogs and cats but left the rats alive. Or one about an awful storm that blows into a port city and exacerbates the disease. Or the ones toward the end of the collection that reach into the present and examine other infectious diseases, such as schistosomiasis, cysticercosis, and even covid. I could go on and on, but I'd rather you just go experience them for yourself!!
There are lots of intriguing overarching topics that span the collection; from the idea that this was either punishment or abandonment by God, to the utter havoc this disease caused in society, to the idea that it killed indiscriminately and leveled social classes. I also love how the author gives us a glimpse into the various perspectives from the time period. We see how the plague affected both prince and pauper alike, and some of my favorite poems are the ones written from the POV of people like the "Village Gravediggers" and the "Brothers of the Dead" (beaked plague doctors). There are also some cool poems that personify the disease as various demons, malicious spirits, and even a horseman of the apocalypse (Pestilence, of course).
It would appear that Tantlinger did her research for this collection. No one could write with such vivid authenticity about buboes, hemorrhaging, and puss otherwise (I hope). It also shows in poems such as "The Siege of Caffa" which is about diseased bodies being launched over city walls during wartime, and "Death Ships," which is about how the plague came to Sicily by boat. Such poems lend another level of weight and authenticity to what is already a well-thought-out collection. So many of these poems had me wanting to spend hours researching the terrifying historical veracity that spawned them.
I could go on and on about the poems in this collection. Like how there's one about people, in their petrified ignorance, who tried killing dogs and cats but left the rats alive. Or one about an awful storm that blows into a port city and exacerbates the disease. Or the ones toward the end of the collection that reach into the present and examine other infectious diseases, such as schistosomiasis, cysticercosis, and even covid. I could go on and on, but I'd rather you just go experience them for yourself!!
May 4, 2021
Cradleland of Parasites is an amazing collection of dark poetry about the Black Plague. Not only does the book never tire or falter, it continues to impress and surprise throughout. In fact, I found this collection so influential that I've decided to keep it within reach at all times for inspiration. Every turn of page made me want to get busy writing!
~
> Reviewed by Aiden Merchant - www.aidenmerchant.com / Instagram @ AidenMerchant89 / Twitter @ AidenMerchant89 / (e) contact@aidenmerchant.com
> Aiden is currently CLOSED to review requests - please refer to social media for updates on openings
> Aiden’s scoring system - (5) Perfection (4) Loved it (3) Enjoyed it (2) Disliked it (1) Hard pass / Aiden generally will not write a review for anything that scores lower than a (3) in his mind / DNF means “Did Not Finish” - this could be because of the writing, scheduling conflicts, lack of interest, or content; it does not necessarily mean the book was terrible
~
> Reviewed by Aiden Merchant - www.aidenmerchant.com / Instagram @ AidenMerchant89 / Twitter @ AidenMerchant89 / (e) contact@aidenmerchant.com
> Aiden is currently CLOSED to review requests - please refer to social media for updates on openings
> Aiden’s scoring system - (5) Perfection (4) Loved it (3) Enjoyed it (2) Disliked it (1) Hard pass / Aiden generally will not write a review for anything that scores lower than a (3) in his mind / DNF means “Did Not Finish” - this could be because of the writing, scheduling conflicts, lack of interest, or content; it does not necessarily mean the book was terrible
January 29, 2021
With the coincidental timing of the onset of the current pandemic, plague poetry might not seem like the most tempting of things to dive into. But award-winning scribe Sara Tantlinger makes it a cathartic experience in Cradleland of Parasites, her latest poetry collection.
Her use of language and word choice force the reader to confront images, particularly of the Black Plague that ravaged the Middle Ages, but also how it ties into human behaviour now, both pre-pandemic but made all the more prescient with its descriptions of "...citizens spending money foolishly, refusing to obey codes, discarding honor..." and it hits home.
She also invokes images of the Classical world with Athens and Constantinople, tracing a history of plagues through humanity, of empires felled, of human greed. Personifying the plague as a demon is visceral and cuts deep.
Destruction works its way through each poem, inch by inch. To say the collection evokes grimness is a given, but it's the way that Tantlinger has expertly crafted ways of looking at personified plagues with fear, but also understanding, like the parable of the frog that carries the scorpion on its back across the river.
There are plagues that most of us will not be familiar with, like the Siege of Cagga (1346), reminding us that as much as we feel now that plagues are a thing of the past, that we have science on our side, that there is hope, that we are advanced, but really, some things don't change. Humanity has always grappled with this and other epidemics.
One of the most poignant lines is "Clean up the streets, but who is left?"
The blood imagery in "Crimson Mercy" affected me very much, a tale of ravaging effects of plague, the measure of whatever control we can come by in these circumstances.
These poems explore the stigma of being infected, of knowing it meant death would come from within but also you would be chased by others and killed lest you spread more death to others.
'Princess Joan' reminded me of the belief that the wealthy 1 percenters have that they will be safe, that plagues will not touch them, that they can 'game the system' to get ahead. It speaks volumes about how the wealthy think that they are exempt from human suffering, that they can buy their way out of it. The language of all the opulence that Princess Joan had, the sense of invulnerability she assumed applied to her, and how deadly her beliefs turned out to be were all impactful.
As Tantlinger reminds us, "...all skeletons look the same when remains become rotten."
Lockdown made this line hurt a lot: "My beloved friends, all gone, their sweet faces I see no more"
I hope that we will find out the answer to this question soon: "...what good, what truth will arise from this, as we all lament in vain?"
There's a fantastic quote from 'The Masque of the Red Death' by Edgar Allan Poe in the middle, and it comes at a critical juncture in the collection.
The poem for which this collection is named, 'Cradleland of Parasites,' is intense, and it ends on a very sombre, disturbing note that I hope is not true.
Personifying the Black Death in a way that seems elegant and seductive is no easy feat, but Tantlinger pulls it off majestically.
In 'Preventative Measures,' it hit home for me that even though our public health and safety guidelines are rooted in the science of hand-washing, maintaining physical distance, and masking up, the remedies described in this poem made me think oh dear Lord, I hope we're not all just practising some of the same superstitions.
The fire imagery as almost everything was set aflame whether churches or bodies, rings out through this collection, as well.
When the reader approaches the end of the collection, with poems like 'Outbreak,' things take on a more modern and disturbing turn, because it hits too close to what we're enduring now.
This line in particular freaked me out: "Viruses have escaped from at least one lab, what other germs seeped through the air, and where have they all gone?"
Another line that got me from another poem was this one: "...turning once loved companions
into deadly, infectious strangers."
'When My Lover Gives Birth to Plague' is one of the most visceral poems with intense and frightening imagery.
'Herd Immunity' is another poem that hit far too close to home, especially with this line: "...destroying greedy humans who refuse to understand how I will spread and spread and spread."
In the poem 'Underwater Snow,' after all of that grief, emotion, and visceral imagery, I was relieved to read: "When this is all over, let’s go away, you and I across the ocean to new
adventures; as we fly over the vast expanse of sea..." -- I just want to hold onto that image and focus on the 'when this is all over' part.
And finally, "...how sometimes it takes great pain and darkness to seek out even greater beauty." -- I want to focus on that and have to hold onto hope that we will make our way through and survive this current plague.
Sara Tantlinger's work is a continuation of that sublime ethos, beautiful horror, and it is unrelenting, expertly put together, and decadent in its richness.
I think it makes sense to read this collection now, or perhaps when things have stabilized (whenever that will be, and whatever that looks like for the world), and reminds me of the hope of seeing friends and family again, of exploring far off lands we have all dreamed of going to, but remembering the grimness within this volume, and heeding it messages so that we can learn from history.
Her use of language and word choice force the reader to confront images, particularly of the Black Plague that ravaged the Middle Ages, but also how it ties into human behaviour now, both pre-pandemic but made all the more prescient with its descriptions of "...citizens spending money foolishly, refusing to obey codes, discarding honor..." and it hits home.
She also invokes images of the Classical world with Athens and Constantinople, tracing a history of plagues through humanity, of empires felled, of human greed. Personifying the plague as a demon is visceral and cuts deep.
Destruction works its way through each poem, inch by inch. To say the collection evokes grimness is a given, but it's the way that Tantlinger has expertly crafted ways of looking at personified plagues with fear, but also understanding, like the parable of the frog that carries the scorpion on its back across the river.
There are plagues that most of us will not be familiar with, like the Siege of Cagga (1346), reminding us that as much as we feel now that plagues are a thing of the past, that we have science on our side, that there is hope, that we are advanced, but really, some things don't change. Humanity has always grappled with this and other epidemics.
One of the most poignant lines is "Clean up the streets, but who is left?"
The blood imagery in "Crimson Mercy" affected me very much, a tale of ravaging effects of plague, the measure of whatever control we can come by in these circumstances.
These poems explore the stigma of being infected, of knowing it meant death would come from within but also you would be chased by others and killed lest you spread more death to others.
'Princess Joan' reminded me of the belief that the wealthy 1 percenters have that they will be safe, that plagues will not touch them, that they can 'game the system' to get ahead. It speaks volumes about how the wealthy think that they are exempt from human suffering, that they can buy their way out of it. The language of all the opulence that Princess Joan had, the sense of invulnerability she assumed applied to her, and how deadly her beliefs turned out to be were all impactful.
As Tantlinger reminds us, "...all skeletons look the same when remains become rotten."
Lockdown made this line hurt a lot: "My beloved friends, all gone, their sweet faces I see no more"
I hope that we will find out the answer to this question soon: "...what good, what truth will arise from this, as we all lament in vain?"
There's a fantastic quote from 'The Masque of the Red Death' by Edgar Allan Poe in the middle, and it comes at a critical juncture in the collection.
The poem for which this collection is named, 'Cradleland of Parasites,' is intense, and it ends on a very sombre, disturbing note that I hope is not true.
Personifying the Black Death in a way that seems elegant and seductive is no easy feat, but Tantlinger pulls it off majestically.
In 'Preventative Measures,' it hit home for me that even though our public health and safety guidelines are rooted in the science of hand-washing, maintaining physical distance, and masking up, the remedies described in this poem made me think oh dear Lord, I hope we're not all just practising some of the same superstitions.
The fire imagery as almost everything was set aflame whether churches or bodies, rings out through this collection, as well.
When the reader approaches the end of the collection, with poems like 'Outbreak,' things take on a more modern and disturbing turn, because it hits too close to what we're enduring now.
This line in particular freaked me out: "Viruses have escaped from at least one lab, what other germs seeped through the air, and where have they all gone?"
Another line that got me from another poem was this one: "...turning once loved companions
into deadly, infectious strangers."
'When My Lover Gives Birth to Plague' is one of the most visceral poems with intense and frightening imagery.
'Herd Immunity' is another poem that hit far too close to home, especially with this line: "...destroying greedy humans who refuse to understand how I will spread and spread and spread."
In the poem 'Underwater Snow,' after all of that grief, emotion, and visceral imagery, I was relieved to read: "When this is all over, let’s go away, you and I across the ocean to new
adventures; as we fly over the vast expanse of sea..." -- I just want to hold onto that image and focus on the 'when this is all over' part.
And finally, "...how sometimes it takes great pain and darkness to seek out even greater beauty." -- I want to focus on that and have to hold onto hope that we will make our way through and survive this current plague.
Sara Tantlinger's work is a continuation of that sublime ethos, beautiful horror, and it is unrelenting, expertly put together, and decadent in its richness.
I think it makes sense to read this collection now, or perhaps when things have stabilized (whenever that will be, and whatever that looks like for the world), and reminds me of the hope of seeing friends and family again, of exploring far off lands we have all dreamed of going to, but remembering the grimness within this volume, and heeding it messages so that we can learn from history.
September 8, 2020
4.5 stars. Tantlinger has a gift for finding the most beautiful words to describe the ugliest horrors. I highly recommend this book of poetry.
October 7, 2020
Gorgeous, heartbreaking, grim. This collection digs into the hopelessness of not only historic plagues, but from the perspective of the experience of being trapped within a plague stricken world. The memory of what life had been like before it melts into the boils, fevered flesh and loss... the loss of not only life, but innocence, youth and tomorrow. All told in harrowing yet always breathtaking verse. This is a collection to be savored, along with all the barbs of exquisite pain it brings.
December 21, 2020
This is a beautiful, dark and haunting collection of poems which centres around the bubonic plague or Black Death, a global pandemic which resulted in a devastating amount of worldwide deaths. I felt this collection was rather timely in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and the way as humans we have responded to being faced with our own mortality. I felt there were some valid lessons in this collection and they were written beautifully. I can’t wait to read more of Sara Tantlinger’s work.
December 11, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed this until one of the last few poems in the collection. While it centers around the Black Plague there was a part that felt way more like it was a personal opinion about our current global health situation, whether it was intended or not, and it kind of ruined it for me. I'm not really a fan of poetry but, I really like Tantlingers work. However, I read to escape. If I wanted to hear peoples opinions about current affairs I would read far more non-fiction novels.
That being said, this author is immensely talented when it comes to making the macabre seem beautiful and I will absolutely continue to read/support her work 🖤
That being said, this author is immensely talented when it comes to making the macabre seem beautiful and I will absolutely continue to read/support her work 🖤
December 29, 2020
This was a horrifyingly beautiful read. Proceed with caution with this one, so much body horror, I physically gagged more than once while reading, I may never eat again, & pretty sure that I'm never venturing outdoors ever again. Definitely a hard read during these times of Covid.
April 15, 2021
Nothing grabs my attention during National Poetry Month like poems centered around the macabre, and CRADLELAND OF PARASITES certainly grabbed that attention with its chronicling of the Black Plague. Sara Tantlinger's writing in these poems is beautiful, graphic, astoundingly relevant (due to its being published as we were all under the shadow of the coronavirus), and possibly triggering for those who are still reeling from 2020. If I'd read this during lockdown when the fear of the pandemic was at its peak, I'm wondering if I would've been able to finish it with all the stress I had been under. I loved how some poems were told from the perspective of the inflicted while others gave voice to the plague itself. Just brilliant!
February 27, 2021
For me, poetry is often like a conversation in a language that you don't fully understand. You get the gist of it, but you know there's more that you're missing.
I did not have that problem with this collection of horror poems. Page after page of rich, visceral imagery, these poems clearly conveyed their meaning. Surrounding the topic of the black plague, it was easy to draw parallels to our current struggles with a certain spreading illness.
I read this cover to cover in one afternoon, and I was continuously impressed by the author's ability to find new ways to make me feel the despair that living in the time of such a deadly plague must have been like.
I did not have that problem with this collection of horror poems. Page after page of rich, visceral imagery, these poems clearly conveyed their meaning. Surrounding the topic of the black plague, it was easy to draw parallels to our current struggles with a certain spreading illness.
I read this cover to cover in one afternoon, and I was continuously impressed by the author's ability to find new ways to make me feel the despair that living in the time of such a deadly plague must have been like.
December 11, 2020
Review to follow...
January 27, 2021
Truly a beautiful and horrifying collection of poetry about the Black Plague. It is filled with vivid imagery about the physical manifestations of it, along with the fear, sorrow, and betrayal that was felt by the people enduring it.
I was thrilled to see many references to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," which was the first story that drew me into horror as a child. Sara Tantlinger applied her own magical capabilities to Poe's in a way that exquisitely intertwined the two. I was also elated when I read the poem "Island of Ghosts" that addressed the Venetian island of Poveglia where they sent all of the victims of plague, "and days the bodies came, even washed up/along the coast, where plague victims/appeared as ghosts, dressed in singed clothes,/welcoming all to their festering island." I had read about how Poveglia is referred to as a haunted island and to this day people don't live there, but you can get a boat ride around the lagoon to look at the island, but never set foot on it.
I was taken aback and entranced by the poems told from the perspective of the Black Plague itself, as an all-consuming parasite. The poem "Bubonic Litany" has the most ghastly lines that I shall not soon forget, "Harbor me in your lungs/(two to seven days, then you're mine)/every haggard breath is my affection/contaminating mortality/are the boils on your groin/too much love?"
Tantlinger clearly did very thorough research to tackle the historical places, people, and situations that pertained to the Black Plague and turned it into hideously graceful poetry. She also tied it all back to our current time with some poems addressing how we've learned nothing about dealing with a pandemic, and that was particularly poignant.
Reading this during our own pandemic was like walking along the edge of a cliff for me. Sometimes I felt like I might slip and lose myself in the terror, uncertainty, and sorrow. Yet I soldiered on and came out more knowledgeable and somehow uplifted. A line from the poem, "Memento Mori" says it all, "Remember that you will die/so that you do not forget to live." We could waste our days living in fear, but why? Try to enjoy every moment, but be safe and be smart to the best of your ability. That's all we can do. We are a bit luckier that our pandemic does not have as high of a mortality rate as the Black Plague, and that alone is something to be thankful for.
I recommend this, and all of Sara Tantlinger's work with the highest regard. She knows how to put unforgettable images into your head with her concise and intricate poetry. You will not be disappointed. Scared, maybe even changed, but never disappointed.
I was thrilled to see many references to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," which was the first story that drew me into horror as a child. Sara Tantlinger applied her own magical capabilities to Poe's in a way that exquisitely intertwined the two. I was also elated when I read the poem "Island of Ghosts" that addressed the Venetian island of Poveglia where they sent all of the victims of plague, "and days the bodies came, even washed up/along the coast, where plague victims/appeared as ghosts, dressed in singed clothes,/welcoming all to their festering island." I had read about how Poveglia is referred to as a haunted island and to this day people don't live there, but you can get a boat ride around the lagoon to look at the island, but never set foot on it.
I was taken aback and entranced by the poems told from the perspective of the Black Plague itself, as an all-consuming parasite. The poem "Bubonic Litany" has the most ghastly lines that I shall not soon forget, "Harbor me in your lungs/(two to seven days, then you're mine)/every haggard breath is my affection/contaminating mortality/are the boils on your groin/too much love?"
Tantlinger clearly did very thorough research to tackle the historical places, people, and situations that pertained to the Black Plague and turned it into hideously graceful poetry. She also tied it all back to our current time with some poems addressing how we've learned nothing about dealing with a pandemic, and that was particularly poignant.
Reading this during our own pandemic was like walking along the edge of a cliff for me. Sometimes I felt like I might slip and lose myself in the terror, uncertainty, and sorrow. Yet I soldiered on and came out more knowledgeable and somehow uplifted. A line from the poem, "Memento Mori" says it all, "Remember that you will die/so that you do not forget to live." We could waste our days living in fear, but why? Try to enjoy every moment, but be safe and be smart to the best of your ability. That's all we can do. We are a bit luckier that our pandemic does not have as high of a mortality rate as the Black Plague, and that alone is something to be thankful for.
I recommend this, and all of Sara Tantlinger's work with the highest regard. She knows how to put unforgettable images into your head with her concise and intricate poetry. You will not be disappointed. Scared, maybe even changed, but never disappointed.
December 9, 2020
A very timely book of poetry....I couldn’t help but compare the plague to what we’re experiencing now....with a lower death rate. This collection made me want to learn more about the Black Plague, which I know virtually nothing about.
The poems that stood out to me were ‘The Demon of Constantinople’, ‘The Butchered Aftermath’, ‘Brokers of the Dead’, ‘1665’, and ‘An Advanced Society’.
Demon made me think of our world leaders and their current disinterest in the plight of those suffering from this pandemic. Seems there will continue to be rotten authority figures again and again.
The Butchered Aftermath was my favorite poem. A poem about women, strong women taking over the role of man. And the role history plays. Who writes the history matters.
The poems that stood out to me were ‘The Demon of Constantinople’, ‘The Butchered Aftermath’, ‘Brokers of the Dead’, ‘1665’, and ‘An Advanced Society’.
Demon made me think of our world leaders and their current disinterest in the plight of those suffering from this pandemic. Seems there will continue to be rotten authority figures again and again.
The Butchered Aftermath was my favorite poem. A poem about women, strong women taking over the role of man. And the role history plays. Who writes the history matters.
November 30, 2025
DNF @ page 43/2 stars
I am sorry this collection of poetry is corny. An entire collection about the Black Plague and littered with odes to plague doctors should be fun, but so many of these poems made me roll my eyes. I don't know, this one just isn't for me. I think it's best to DNF this one and move on.
I am sorry this collection of poetry is corny. An entire collection about the Black Plague and littered with odes to plague doctors should be fun, but so many of these poems made me roll my eyes. I don't know, this one just isn't for me. I think it's best to DNF this one and move on.
May 25, 2021
4.5 deliciously disgusting, horrifyingly haunting
August 19, 2022
Not a poetry expert!
May 19, 2022
Rating: 4/5 stars
Cradleland of Parasites, a horror poetry collection regarding The Black Plague, so eloquently unveils the dark and dismal pandemic. Sara’s writing is saturated with beauty, even in the midst of such a bleak collection. The poems were rich, despite discussing the impoverished; powerful when presenting the feeble. Cradleland of Parasites isn’t *just* horror—it’s a profound representation of what this genre has to offer, and that sometimes the greatest horrors of all are the ones we endure in the real world.
If you’re a fan of poetry, anything dark and historical, or just need something short between reads, pick up Cradleland of Parasites.
Cradleland of Parasites, a horror poetry collection regarding The Black Plague, so eloquently unveils the dark and dismal pandemic. Sara’s writing is saturated with beauty, even in the midst of such a bleak collection. The poems were rich, despite discussing the impoverished; powerful when presenting the feeble. Cradleland of Parasites isn’t *just* horror—it’s a profound representation of what this genre has to offer, and that sometimes the greatest horrors of all are the ones we endure in the real world.
If you’re a fan of poetry, anything dark and historical, or just need something short between reads, pick up Cradleland of Parasites.
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