‘ A woman like that is not ashamed to die ’: reclaiming the witch in contemporary women ’ s poetry By Jessica Bex
Despite the dark history of the witch trials ending in England over three hundred years ago , the impression of a witch as someone ‘ who practices witchcraft or magic … of a malevolent or harmful nature ’ has been primarily a woman since the fifteenth century , and she still haunts us today . Since the witch trials , ‘ the dominant image of the witch [ has become ] a shrieking hag on a broomstick , the Wicked Witch of the West ’, as Diane Purkiss writes , and previous efforts to rescue the witch from tendencies for generic cliché have failed . Through methods previously unattempted , this anthology uses contemporary women ’ s poetry , a form reliant on a compounded image , to correct misconceptions and reclaim the witch . It investigates