Although I tried, I simply could not get into this poetry collection. I love poetry, but this did not give me what makes me love poetry, not even a little bit. Instead of a gentle enjoyment it felt like work trying to trudge through this, even as short as it is.

I am sure there will be many who do find this interesting and engaging, but sadly I am not one of them.

I feel like i didn't resonate with the content of the books which made it harder to me to enjoy the poetry. The cover is gorgeous, I just wasn't a fan of the style and topics of the poems.

Arc review.

I love how this book looks.
The content was a bit harder to get in to.
There are some amazing poems in here, some less my thing.
But overal a good poetry book.
It are some cute ''nature'' vibes which I liked, and made the book different.

3,5/5
Thank you to everyone involved for the arc.

3.75 rounded up this is a beautiful, lyrical collection full of folklore I really enjoyed alot of the poems and would definitely revisit. Some of them weren't all that memorable for me but I'd still recommend it especially for autumn.

I absolutely love this book. Colleen Anderson has woven a tapestry of greed, love, longing, desire, despair, and magic. We are held captive in the tower with Rapunzel breathing in air dusty with books and fragrant with bouquets of appeasement. Anderson uses Rapunzel's tower as an allegory for depression and the confines sufferers of this illness experience. All her life Rapunzel longs to break free from the tower, to escape and feel the fullness of a life lived free and discover who she is. "What am I when I stop growing," she wonders; "will she cultivate a golden treasure/ consume my songs and aspirations/ or see me as an unsightly weed?" If Rapunzel can't see herself as a whole person, will anyone? "My feet are nothing/ but stone, sediment," Rapunzel says. She is frozen, fixed in place within the prison of the tower.
My favorite poems in the collection are "Gorgon" and "Sedna," modelled on two mythical women ill-used by man but refusing to be victims. Their anger fuels their power, punishing sinners in their wake.
"Forgotten Language" reads like an enchantment being cast: "[...] mouse beetle butterfly bee/ learn to speak in ancient tongues/ scribe the language with stone and nail/ [...] we breed in wild green, flowers/ seeds, live free, move mostly unseen/ winds serenade, leaf litter/ trees, hives hold our homes/ [...] we speak with you/ a shade to the outside world/ you might never be free/ but we will listen/ to your plea"
The witch's words in "Let Me" build walls within the tower's walls: "I will bring you bouquets, a feast for your eyes/ [...] I cherish you too much/ [...] I will bring you a cornucopia of fruit, colors, flavors: you will never want." Except for her freedom. When Rapunzel is finally free of the tower, she is still lost, struggling to survive: "My way was lost/ before I ever found it [...] I'm a leaf adrift on the wind/ will I stay afloat or drown/ spiraling beyond reach"
After much trial and suffering, Rapunzel finds solace in the familiar, wondering if everything she lived through was worth it. "The wheel turns," she realizes, "as I stand still."
It is not easy to escape the tower. As someone living with major depressive disorder, I recognize the struggle to find fulfillment, to realize I have escaped the tower, only to find myself enclosed once more. In her Dedication of this book, Colleen Anderson states "Those who are stuck in the towers of isolation cannot always reach out." Often, we don't even recognize we are held captive. However, like Rapunzel, we must find the strength to keep going.
Colleen Anderson has written a brilliant, beautiful, painful book that should be cherished by everyone who reads it.

3.5/5
Haunting, tragic and beautiful.
I was enraptured from the start. The use of mythical women was intriguing. There were some poems that were better, some were a bit confusing and disconnected. The author needs to work on that. Overall this was a great book with emotional poems filled with grief, depression and abandonment.

Publishing date: 29.07.2025 (DD/MM/YYYY)
Thank you to NetGalley and RDS Publishing for the ARC. My opinions are my own.

Oh this is a neat little book! A neat little collection of poetry to be specific.

The feeling this book gives is lonely, hoping, wanting better, to be better, and wild. While it is rooted in fantasy and folktales, it feels so relatable in a way I really can't describe.

This is definitely for the girls that feel a little different.

I don't really have much more to say than that. This book is hard to describe. Maybe saying that it smells like moss and petrichor helps narrow down the audience.

Giving this 3 stars. While yes it was beautiful and highly emotional, I have forgotten most of the contents and am left with just a vague feeling of loneliness. Will recommend to all my girlies, especially the alternative ones.

I don’t often read poetry, but Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins completely drew me in from the very first page. Told through a series of poems that flow like intimate journal entries, it follows the life of a girl trapped in a tower, from youth to old age. Each piece offers a glimpse into her inner world—her dreams, fears, and longings—while weaving in rich references to folklore and classic literature, most notably The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson.

The imagery is lush and haunting, and the emotional undercurrents shift beautifully as the character grows older. Every poem feels like a carefully pressed leaf in a diary, worth lingering over. I rarely reread books, but these poems are the kind I could return to again and again, each time finding new layers and treasures hidden between the lines.

A gorgeous, evocative collection that will resonate with both poetry lovers and as well as lovers of fantasy/literary prose.

Visceral and evocative, Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins brings life to women of myth and fairytale in a way that is so painfully relatable for many. Much of the collection has an overarching narrative, blending several tales to represent the different stages of life our narrator goes through. The first third or so isn't as cohesive, but the poems were nonetheless poignant.

Abandonment, grief, and depression are common themes in this collection, I would recommend being in a good headspace before diving in. This one is for the women who want more, who feel like they don't quite fit, who have been told they are too much

Enjoyed this poetry collection from Colleen Anderson. All the poems were good, but my favorites were "Tower" and "Winter". Will need to find more from Colleen Anderson. #VellumLeavesandLetteredSkins #NetGalley

I’ve been reaching for more poetry this summer 🌿 there’s just something so comforting about quiet, lyrical reads that pair perfectly with a breezy afternoon and a shady spot outdoors 🌞📖🌱

Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins is more than just a collection of poetry. Colleen Anderson has seamlessly weaved myth and fairytale into every line, creating poems that explore survival, transformation, and feminine power. What struck me most was how personal and creative this collection felt! I also loved spotting the little touches of nature threaded through each piece.
I’ve already pre-ordered my own copy and can’t wait to see this pretty cover irl🫶🏻

Visceral and evocative, Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins is the perfect book to curl up with on a cold and windy night.
Easy to read in one sitting, it also contains various literary references that make the poems feel a bit like a treasure hunt.
The one thing I wasn't sure about was the direction it took in the second half. If anything, the book could have easily been split into two collections, as the second part didn't quite mesh with the first.

To start with, I don’t normally read poetry; it’s not really my thing. However, I love anything related to folklore and fairy tales, which this poetry collection was, so I was intrigued. It also had an absolutely amazing cover that drew me in.

The start and ending were amazing, but the middle did drop, and I struggled to follow along at parts. I was unsure if it was one story or separate poems, and I was unsure if this was intentional or not. However, all in all, these poems were raw, aching, and lyrical, and I’m glad I picked it up. No matter how many times I re-read, I found new depths and meaning that I hadn't before. I also liked how each poem echoed nature.

Colleen Anderson is a Canadian author writing fiction and poetry and has had two collections and over 300 poems published in such venues as Grievous Angel, Polu Texni, The Future Fire, HWA Poetry Showcase and many others. She is a member of HWA and SFPA and a Canada Council grant recipient for writing. She has performed her work before audiences in the US, UK and Canada and has placed in the Balticon, Rannu, Crucible and Wax poetry competitions. Colleen also enjoys editing and co-edited Canadian anthologies Playground of Lost Toys (Aurora nominated) and Tesseracts 17, and her solo anthology Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland was published by Exile Books. She has served on both Stoker Award and British Fantasy Award juries, and guest-edited Eye to the Telescope. Her latest collection of poetry is Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins.



Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins is, at its core, a retelling of the Rapunzel myth. Anderson infuses it with other folktales, such as Basille’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” and Rumpelstiltskin, as well as historical figures and buildings, such as Lady Godiva or the cloigthithe of Ireland. While Anderson doesn’t add anything truly new to the various iterations of the tale, folks only familiar with the more common Grimm variant of the tale or the recent animated film will find Anderson's take unique and refreshing.



When the poems in this collection use the literary devices one would expect from a poetry collection (imagery, metaphor, meter, etc.), the poems are effective and tight. For example, these opening lines



Consider me a flower, a tree

a sacred fruit

some days, I am petals floating

others, in bloom burgeoning

smothering perfume



The day is honey-heavy with bees

sleep strokes my eyes in hazy heat

I doze and drone, abuzz with humming desires

until I hear: Rapunzel. Rapunzel.



Reading poems like these, it’s clear that Anderson knows her craft and prosody. The sounds that resonate though out this poem--alveolar fricatives dancing with long o and long e vowels—create a sonorous pleasure for the readers, lulling them in the very dozy feeling of the speaker. This is poetry doing what it’s supposed to do: affecting the reader physically while the words affect them intellectually. When Anderson allows her skill to show through, the poems are rich and successful.



Unfortunately, the collection is uneven, and many of the poems seem like filler. One gets a sense, both from reading the introduction to the collection as well as the end material, that this book was intended, originally, to be a much shorter project than its current iteration. Many of the poems seem to summarize previous poems, adding little to the collection beyond page length. Take, for example, poem “Full Circle,” which begins:

I am back where I began

was it all for nothing

I am empty, a circle round

unfilled sphere



These sorts of abstract lines read more like pop lyrics than poetry, and when held up against the standards that Anderson set for herself in other poems, read as weak and uncurated.



Overall, fans of horror poetry will probably find something to enjoy in this collection. Anderson is a talented poet whose mastery of craft and language shows through on many of these poems when she lets it. While the collection is uneven, there is enough here that readers of horror poetry will not be disappointed.

I was immediately drawn into this by the cover and title and was interested on the poetry within. While it was beautifully written and it was telling a story throughout some of the various poems, I couldn't quite get into it. I honestly felt I wasn't sophisticated enough to enjoy it fully. Because of the good reviews that did occur, it's probably more something I was struggling with so I'm still giving 3 stars, though I would truly give it 3.5.

3.5/5 stars

I was really enchanted at the beginning of this one; it roped me in and held me tight with how beautifully written these poems were, as well as unfolding a cohesive narrative. I loved the Rapunzel imagery of isolation, longing, and identity. It was emotional and beautiful, and there were moments that really hit me in the chest.


However, somewhere in the middle, I started to feel lost. The story structure unraveled, and I found myself unsure of whether I was following a thread or reading separate poems. I know this is a collection, but since parts read so much like a story in verse, the shift was jarring.

Toward the end, it picked back up again emotionally, though some tidbits were a bit disorienting. I also had the sense that the author is still finding her preferred poetic form. Some pieces flowed far better than others.

That said, some moments were really STUNNING, and those moments shone!

"I am the lone tree
in a rampant meadow
of raging splendor"

Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins by Colleen Anderson is such a good story. I totally recommend everyone to read this book as fast as they can because it's really good.

I live for poetry. I make it a point to read at least one poem every day. I didn't go into this with any expectation (ngl, I just loved the cover) but what a lovely surprise. This is more than a collection of poems. It is a whole story with a narrative arc, it just happens to be broken down into poems that each stand on their own. Each poem is beautifully composed and dripping with familiar archetypes from myth and fairytale. This is the heroine’s journey, from a princess contained in a tower, ultimately always being to big, too much for the world trying to box her in.

Thank you Colleen Anderson for the ARC, what a treat, I plan on reading all over again.

While I did enjoy it, it didn't quite suck me in like I wished it would've. The poetry is good and it tells a story but there was something lacking that I can't quite pinpoint what. But others have enjoyed it so it's a personal thing and not a lack of ability from the author.

This is like a story in poetic form, medieval and indebted to that imagery. One day I wish to learn how to spell medieval without using spell check. But it's low on the list of words because there are so many others that I unfortunately use more often and should learn first. Isn't that crazy?

Thanks for the ARC