Salt Is For Curing

by Sonya Vatomsky

Ariana Reines says: "Sonya Vatomsky's Salt Is For Curing is many things: a feast, a grimoire, a fairy tale world, the real world. It's also too smart for bullshit and too graceful to be mean about the bullshit: a marvelous debut. I love it."

Juliet Escoria, author of Black Cloud, says: "Imagine bodies within bodies eating a feast, spilling over with their own secrets and hopes and dreams and fears and brutality and witchery. That is the party you will find in this book — a modern-day, literary equivalent of a Bosch painting.

Mike Young, author of Sprezzatura, says: "These poems list the real shit. These poems melt the hard fat of life into tallow candles, then reach up and light themselves.

Salt Is For Curing is the lush and haunting full-length debut by Sonya Vatomsky. These poems, structured as an elaborate meal, conjure up a vapor of earthly pains and magical desires; like the most enduring rituals, Vatomsky’s poems both intoxicate and ward. A new blood moon in American poetry, Salt Is For Curing is surprising, disturbing, and spookily illuminating.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

80 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2015

About the author

Sonya Vatomsky is the author of Salt Is For Curing, a poetry collection. Their fiction has appeared in Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror while their nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Smithsonian Magazine. In 2024, they were shortlisted for the PFD Queer Fiction Prize.

Sonya was born in the Soviet Union and raised in the United States, where they studied Linguistics and Finnish at the University of Washington. They live in Manchester, England.

Author photo by Seanen Middleton.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Curious, intricate poems. Lots of language play and the conjuring of myths. Rather enjoyed this one.

[Ken Baumann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this about the book: Salt Is For Curing is the lush and haunting full-length debut by Sonya Vatomsky. These poems, structured as an elaborate meal, conjure up a vapor of earthly pains and magical desires; like the most enduring rituals, Vatomsky’s poems both intoxicate and ward. A new blood moon in American poetry, Salt Is For Curing is surprising, disturbing, and spookily illuminating.

[Sasha Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was weird, witchy, and wonderful. I'm going to have to read this a few more times to fully understand it but it's worth another read or 10.

4/17

I understand it now.

1/12/21

i read it fully. i understand it now. it was beautiful.

[TheVampireBookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had been a 5star recommendation from a couple of bookstagrammers who usually like the same stuff I do so it was a no brainer for me - I had to buy it. It cost 15 Dollars plus shipping to a faraway country for as little as seventy something pages. You know it would have to blow my mind in order to get a lot of stars after I paid that much.
So, did it? Not really. I'm not saying that it was a waste of time, no, there were good moments - I especially appreciated the author's playfulness when it came to incorporating various languages in the poems; using the collection as a long menu was a great idea but there were only a few poems that resonated with me.
At one point I was so frustrated why it didn't work for me (I couldn't fathom why so many people had given it 5stars) that I actually read a piece of it aloud (because I didn't want to finish it in one day since it was so short and I paid for it that much) and guess what! It clicked! Just like that. Out loud it made sense. So I finished it reading it aloud and understood why so many people had liked it.
To sum this up, I'd love to hear this as an audiobook. That would be a solution for me. As a book on its own, however, it will forever be lacking voice.

[F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really unique, beautiful work. Makes you think.

[Brooke 🎀 · Rating 5 out of 5]

terribly gorgeous, loved it!!

[Shay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unique and fantastic. Two of my favorite bits:

"Keep out of my underworld! neither drag
me to hell
nor drag me out of it, stop filling my mouth
with coins for
some stygian
ferryman. use your words! Ask permission. I
am magic enough"

"This is how it starts. You ask if it's a love potion
and I say yes, something like that,
in the sense that love and death are indistinct things,
liquid bubbling down-throat to still the limbs,
slow the heart"

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this on my kindle so I could devour it immediately, but I desperately need to get my hands on a physical copy. I want to read it over and over again and fill the pages with underlines and notes and soak it all in until I know it by heart and it's being held together by hope and rubber bands. I am in love with this book.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gothy, witchy collection of poetry that is part cookbook, part fable, and part instruction (or is it “warning”….?). The language is lovely and haunting, with invocations of mythology and old fairy tales throughout. Evocative and enchanting, a dark delight. I enjoyed this very much.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of variety in these poems in format, in tone and attitude. Lots of attitude. A really smart collection.

[Brooks Sterritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"As much SALT as you can stand, rubbed the way you'd rub an ache until it gives in beneath you."

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poetry in this book is beautiful. I will re-visit this one also. 5 stars and best read pile.

[Vanesa Pacheco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread this poetry collection to write a short review for an upcoming zine. It still slaps. 10/10 recommend for some gut-wrenching and body horror poems.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freshly served by Sator Press, Sonya Vatomsky’s first full-length collection, “Salt is For Curing” uses its dark feasts and folklore to explore the frailty of our memories and bodies. With photography by Sator’s founding editor, the cover’s salt circle invokes and repels darkness, sealing the poems within. Guiding readers through its three courses, Vatomsky’s poetry is a truly generous offering, complete with aperitif and digestif.
As the title reminds how we can hold onto things for an almost unnatural length of time, much of this collection commemorates what’s passed. The opening poem, “Bathymetry,” stretches from old legends of empowerment and oppression all the way to the present, as we’re told: “I’ve got the kind of light / you name galaxies after. / Andromeda, for example, / which means “ruler of men” / so, of course / they stripped her naked and chained her / to a rock” (11). Like a dinner toast for a death, this collection’s recurring spells and other forms crystallize facts for future audiences:

“Apotheosis”

The recipe called for murder; I did not misread it: 6 SPRIGS
FRESH DILL, as much SALT as you can stand, and take a
KNIFE to the one that failed you. 1 WHOLE POTATO,
1 WHOLE CARROT. You will not be cold this winter, you
will not. Locate the JOINT, move the BONE back and forth;
it can be hard to find the ARTICULATION POINT with the
sobs still lodged in your throat like fish bones. Chop the DILL
into fine green shards; they are the forest you bury him in.
They are the fog on the fallen leaves on the wet snow on the soil.
They are the wood frog and the arctic lamprey and the brown
bear leaving trails in the opposite direction. Use your KNIFE
to TRIM excess FAT, REMOVE the BONE with minimal
damage to the meat, turn his memory to the grounds that sit
at the bottom of your porcelain cup painted in wild strawberries:
a fortune teller’s ephemera. Use the tip of your KNIFE — not
the blade, lest he leave rings on you like an aging tree — in short
flicking motions. REMOVE the BONE with minimal damage
to the meat. As much SALT as you can stand, rubbed the way
you’d rub an ache until it gives in beneath you. Little peat bog,
little бог, little God. Ivan the Fool slept
on an oven and so will you. (34)

Whether by broiling, carving, or extracting, these poems address grief on their own terms. Blending personal experience with instruction, Vatomsky teach us that tears are a surprisingly fine substitute for most ingredients, and that, “To brew a love potion is to kill yourself but to poison is to breathe” (71). But these poems also serve as timelines, occupying the past to resist forgetting. With its many references to food and language, “Salt is For Curing” blurs the line between identity and context, and how we place ourselves within our own history.
Yet these poems recognize that no amount of salt can preserve something forever. Food must be eaten, or it perishes. Bodies must be buried, or hidden. Leading us into the swamplands by a “chain of rope and scarves,” the speaker laments: “I am being carefully and / systemically forgotten” (22), as if even memories decay in the mire. But these poems know the dirty details required for moving on, whether from a stern mother’s advice, or somebody who’s learned the “safest place to bury a body / is in another body / is in your own body” (17). Vatomsky knows we learn through pain—licking our wounds until the taste of blood no longer scares us—as a witch “can only be burned so many times before she thinks hmm / something has got to change here” (73).
“Salt is For Curing” offers the ultimate reward in exchange for your darkest red. Making a thick paste from a phoenix’s bones to reexamine resurrection myths, these poems count all 32 teeth, then eat your words with bread. Sonya Vatomsky reflects upon salt and suffering, creating a literary love potion that’s equal parts wishing well and butcher’s hook.

[Bri (readingknitter) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I scooped up this slim book of poetry from a delightful bookstore (Bluestockings Bookstore) on a recent trip to NYC. It was part of a turn out feature and I was intrigued by the cover and randomly flipping to a poem within the collection and immediately deciding, "Yes! I must have this!"

The collection is designed to follow a multiple course dinner menu and is broken into the following sections: Apertif, First Course, Second Course, Third Course, and Digestif. Some of the poems play up thematics of menus and cookbooks, with some poems being recipes for broken hearts that include some real ingredients (black pepper) and some nontraditional ingredients (tears).

This poems are largely about heartbreak, losing someone, grief, sharing yourself with another, and recovery, with bits of Russian, the language and cultural experiences and references, sprinkled in here and there. 

My favorite poems in the collection were, in chronological order: Chamomile, Spidersilk, The Serbo-Croation Language Uses the Same Word čičak for Burdock and Velcro, Dorian Gray, and the poem that shares the collection's title, Salt is for Curing. 

Here's a small bit from Salt is for Curing:
... Self preservation is an art and I
a masterpiece. The kind of thing you bow before
in museums but cross the street to avoid.
I don't
feel
haunted. Exactly. Maybe like a spice jar that's holding
more inside than volume would suggest possible. My
little tin lid fits snug but the pressure
is really something ...

Here's a small bit from Spidersilk (in full here):
... This is how you look when I spread myself before you like a picnic: 
here a little bottle of what makes me cry most, a glass
dish of my greatest fears, a ton of mille-feuille folded
from the kind of trust that gives your bones an earthquake,
sugared with the weight of my lashes on your shoulder as you sleep ...

For more reviews, check out girlwithabookblog.com!

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a dark spell, a howl in a moonless night, footsteps chasing right behind you, a protection from the loneliness waking you up at 2am. It is the ring of salt Vatomsky cast around her deepest, raw feelings...not to protect herself, but to protect others from being engulfed in them.

"Dorian Grey"

Remember me like nails breaking on chalkboard. Remember me like childhood dreams where you must drown yourself in thick swampwater before they come for you and like papercuts that won't stop bleeding,like a scar from the night that turned out to be the worst night of your life. Remember your life. Remember your life like my panic attacks and their side-effect of gastrointestinal distress, like my guts lurch each time my ears ring my eyes blur my palms sweat like I'm waiting for the first first date in the world. Remember your first date.
Remember your hands and her hands and armrests and your hands and her hands and the moment is gone and you stare at your ceiling all night with the greatest emptiness. Remember me like the greatest emptiness, like the bruise you left on my thigh was invisible ink like your spit was invisible ink like your breath was invisible ink and the special light I need to read the words is the one in my bedroom. Remember me like fingers down the throath of the first time you felt known. Remember feeling known. Remember feeling known like it leaves your body with so much saliva and bruised knees and running tapwater. Remember me like I put myself back together, like I literally re-remember myself every morning out of what's left when i wake up. I dust my limbs I grease my joints I blow up my lungs soft like plastic bags carrying nothing. Remember me like a portrait in your attic that you never throw away, that forgets you more and
more each time
you look at it.

[Midwest Witches · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy poetry with dark imagery and ‘witchy’ depictions then Salt is for Curing is definitely up your alley. Sonya Vatomsky beautifully describes her life, love, and survival through mental images of food and spell symbolism. Written in sections, like that of a sophisticated feast, this tiny, 77 page paperback will fill your mind with contemplation and is just what your soul needs to feel satiated.

While the author describes her debut as simply a “collection of poems about bones, dill, and survival”, it is so much more than that. The publisher, SATOR (which is magical in its name already), goes further to describe the poems as able to “conjure up a vapor of earthly pains and magical desires; like the most enduring rituals”, that “Vatomsky’s poems both intoxicate and ward”. This may be going a little overboard on the magical wordplay from SATOR, but at the same time the reader really does feel intoxicated with Vatomsky’s writings. It’s as though her pain and desires can be felt through her poems, which feels like more than just excellent writing.

I’ll admit that I really only picked up this gem because the cover caught my eye. So props to Ken Baumann who designed that. Any witch should at least be familiar with the idea of salt circles, and with the hint of the pentagram the cover screamed at me to at least explore the interior. Instead, I greedily gulped it down as though I’d been starving my entire life. I intend to go back to it (after I have some spending money to purchase it!) and slowly roll each poem around in my mouth for a better taste. Definitely worth the time and money!

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes
I struggle
with
modern poetry
and it's
formatting.
I sometimes find it difficult to really enjoy poetry which doesn't have a consistent rhythm, which is probably kind of old fashioned of me. Despite this I did really love this collection. Some of the poems in this collection do follow that one word per a line structure, which I think for the most part works, but is occasionally very jarring. There were just one or two poems where it was jarring enough to sort of pull me out of the experience, and not in a way that felt intentional. This is the only reason I didn't give this book two stars, and may not bother some people at all.

Vatomsky's imagery is brilliant, somehow stark and ugly yet beautiful at the same time. I loved the folklore themes present in a lot of the poems, the exploration of it's primal and violent side as well as the imagery of the meditative, traditional, ritualistic elements. Vatomsky uses the imagery of ordinary everyday things like bread and salt, to signify how great and significant small things can be in our history but also how everyday grand, important themes can be.
Almost like an earthier Angela Carter.

[Bryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were two poems which took my breath away, which I read over and over, feeling that they expressed something true and real about the world that could only be expressed by that exact combination of words on the page.

And there was one poem that did not strike me as so perfect but I still read it three or four times in appreciation of the way the words all fit together in sound and meaning and evocation.

Then the rest were all right, or less than all right; she has a few tricks and she kept deploying them over and over, and I prefer poetry that I cannot see the tricks being used, even if I should be saying 'craft' instead of tricks, and even if it is very good craft, craft I cannot replicate at all myself. I still do not want to see the same 3 things over 30 times each.

So three stars: 5 stars for the 3 poems that wowed me, 2 stars for the rest of it being fairly uninteresting. Poetry is like that, for me, feast or famine.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was scary, surprising and interesting all at once. The things talked about in the book can be seen as gruesome and isn't recommended to readers who don't like things that contain sensitive content that is seen as gruesome but is why I feel like this book has depth. This book was limitless, the author didn't limit herself to certain things and it didn't seem..censored. When I say that I really mean the author doesn't conform to the norms people see in books on the usual. It gives a variety of genres to express themselves and be creative without trying not to be "scary" or "innapropriate"

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually liked this. The metaphors between food and love are executed pretty well, I like the subtle presence of modern witchcraft, the references to the author's heritage and the overall dark, kind of creepy atmosphere to this. As far as my 2020 quest to give poetry a second chance and see if there's any I actually like goes, this book is a keeper and I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Chloe H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a while since a book of poetry affected me the way this one did. The poems are dark and beautiful and brimming with my favorite sorts of metaphors; food, fairy tales, witchcraft, surgery.

[Kerani · Rating 2 out of 5]

As much as I enjoy modern poetry, this one just went over my head. I might like it better if I come back to it another time (and there were a few poems in particular I liked), but overall this one is sitting at 2.5/5 stars for me.

[Rebeca F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This poetry collection is so powerful and lush. Exquisitely intricate, dark and evocative, it casts a spell impossible to resist and evokes old ghosts and feelings, memories and forgotten fears. It's a haunting of its own.

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

['This is how it starts. You ask if it's a love potion
and I say yes, something like that,
in the sense that love and death are indistinct things,
liquid bubbling down-throat to still the limbs,
slow the heart'

3.5/5.

[Nicole Craswell · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars.

[Emily Bily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very unique little book of poetry, and it really does make one think. Witty with oddly-formed sentences.

[shimmerr · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is very magic.

[Kjerstif · Rating 5 out of 5]

A painting in words

[Katherine C. Hirstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5