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Book Review — Nocturnal Frights


Book: Nocturnal Frights: India's First Horror Poetry Collection
Author: Meera Bhansali
Publisher: Puffins Publishers (2025)
Genre: Horror Poetry
Total Pages: 126


This incredibly remarkable title, "Nocturnal Frights — India’s First Horror Poetry Collection" by author Meera Bhansali is a bold and genre-defining work that dares to walk where Indian poetry has rarely ventured — with a steady gaze into the dark. Interestingly, this collection shifts the lens outward and inward at once, plunging the readers into a nocturnal landscape of fear, phantoms, and psychological unease. What makes "Nocturnal Frights" compelling is not its reliance on shock, but its atmosphere. Bhansali understands that true horror does not scream; it whispers, lingers, and settles slowly into the subconscious. These poems do not rush to frighten—they stalk the reader, page by page, line by line. 


The collection explores ghostly apparitions, night creatures, and primal fears that haunt both the mind and the soul, yet it remains firmly rooted in fiction. The author is clear in her intent: this is not an endorsement of witchcraft or supernatural belief systems, but a poetic exploration of fear as an emotion, a construct, and a cultural shadow. By choosing poetry as the medium, Bhansali elevates horror beyond narrative tropes and into a sensory, almost visceral experience. Dark poetry, as practiced here, becomes a tool to dissect dread — its textures, silences, and echoes — transforming fear into something strangely beautiful. The verses draw heavily from gothic and horror traditions while still feeling contemporary, aligning seamlessly with modern subcultures that embrace darkness as a form of expression rather than something to be feared or denied.  


What sets "Nocturnal Frights" apart is its ability to balance the macabre with control. The imagery is sharp, the language deliberate, and the emotional cadence precise. There is no excess for the sake of drama; every shadow serves a purpose. Bhansali’s poems often feel like fragments of nightmares — unfinished, unsettling, and deliberately open-ended — allowing the readers to project their own fears into the gaps. This interaction between text and reader is where the collection truly succeeds. The horror is not handed to you; it is invited in. In that sense, the book becomes less about ghosts and more about the human mind’s capacity to create monsters in darkness. 


As India’s first dedicated horror poetry collection, "Nocturnal Frights" is not just a book — it is a cultural marker. It expands the boundaries of Indian poetry and challenges preconceived notions of what verse can hold. Meera Bhansali proves that poetry can be a powerful vessel for fear, capable of exploring the gothic without losing literary depth. For readers drawn to dark aesthetics, psychological horror, and poetry that refuses to stay comfortable, this collection delivers a chilling yet refined experience. Besides, "Nocturnal Frights" does not simply ask you to read in the dark — it asks you to sit with it, listen closely, and confront the shadows you usually avoid. 

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