Grotesque, sexy, and honest poetry.
Witch by Rebecca Amas was suggested to me by a fellow poet to inspire my own writing, unknowingly she is a lecturer of creative writing at a local university. Tamas is interested in using allegory as metaphor in light of topics such as the female body, sex, and liberation. Witch is funny, sexy, and grotesque. It uses the figure of the witch as a vehicle for commentary of the wild fire that can inso with disregarding social expectation with complete anarchy. There is a lot to dissever in her work, which I always enjoy in poetry. Stand out lines include,
the light is not stupid or clever
the light is an option yet unplanned
unknown
......
Love makes me forget myself sometimes
I am horribly angry, I am sick with it,
my vomit turns black, but this love.
I can't explain it, beyond that it is exactly.
I found a sense of solace in the character of the witch, her recklessness and detachment to being civilised was comforting to the moments when you want to throw shit at the wall. Amas tools heavily included history, particularly the lives of Witches and Suffragettes which asked you to draw upon comparisons to the supposedly “reckless” women of our histories, and how reckless is only relevant to the rules laid out.
A wonderful read for those who want to grasp feminist ideas in nuanced ways especially in historical fiction. If you liked the anarchist that is Phoebe Wallerbridge in Fleabag, you are sure to like Witch.
Written by Stephanie Ornithari Roberts