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Horror poetry is the attempt to use poetic craft to write poems that disturb the reader in an uncanny way. The best horror poetry leaves a person with a chill down the spine and thoughts racing through the mind--what has just hit me? why do I still feel uneasy eight hours after I read that poem? Some horror poems might evoke what the religious scholar Rudolf Otto called the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. This refers to any experience which is "aweful," that is, "awe inspiring" that is mysterious, powerful, but which somehow draws a person into fascination with it. The experience of horror becomes a low-level mystical experience, fueled by plot line, characterization, atmosphere, and other devices. In poetry, these include:

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(1) atmospheric language to create a sense of the uncanny. In a first draft of a poem, I might write, "At eve the darkening shades of grey / reveal the shapes of twisted arms / branches  drooping toward the ground / seeking ...." This is too much "telling" vs "showing," and barely atmospheric enough to produce a mild sense of unease. But if I change the line to "As summer's eve sweats light away / revealing eldritch dark / twisted arms with reaching claws / jut out to grab my throat..." Not great, but much better than before in creating a creepy atmosphere. Using more vivid imagery and archaic words can create a sense of ancient evil that haunts the reader.

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(2) Incongruity can work against expectation. I wrote a poem that describes a man cleaning and scaling a fish and the meat he saves to cook. The final lines are the clincher: "The rest / the female face, the breasts / he throws out." Expectations are thwarted when the "fish" turns out to have been a mermaid. 

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(3) I will only refer to one more method I use, and that is creating tension. Anticipating is at the heart of tension; a person's heart rate reaches its peak before  a scare in a film not not during the scare itself. Capturing that level of tension in words is difficult. Poetry can use enjambment, the unexpected in the next line, or delay in resolution to create tension. As an example of the first, one might write, "At the end of the black passage a hand reaches out / and pulls off his arm.' The latter could be something like this. "Down the passage he creeps five further feet / still no sound from the old woman / inching along more slowly / reaching toward her thin, rough throat / he stares a moment at her pulse / relishes it hanging on a thread / as he lowers his hand, fingers her carotid beats / squeezes ...." This is better than saying, "He grabbed her throat, squeezing it hard / cutting off the carotids...."

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There are other methods the poet can use--rhythm, rhyme and slant-rhyme, figures of speech--to elicit eerie fear. Perhaps now you can try your hand at writing some horror poems.