I don't read much poetry, but today I happened across both 'The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One' and 'To Make Monsters Out of Girls' in my local bookshop. Since I loved Amanda Lovelace's 'The Princess Saves Herself in This One', I decided to buy both, totally unplanned, along with five other books.
Sometimes, madness is a kind of magic.
Not as powerful as Lovelace's previous 'Women Are Some Kind of Magic' poetry collection, but 'The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One' is no less relevant, haunting, and liberating.
The women are taking back power denied them for millennia. It is they who will now set aflame the patriarchy at its fragile, crumbling stake, hundreds of years after the actual witch hunts; from which the blood and magic - the FIRE - of the murdered women flows through our veins.
The witch cannot, will not, take it anymore.
Never be timid, never be a doormat, never let things be as they are at the moment, out of fear (it is the men in power who are afraid of you.) Never allow yourself to be silenced. Nothing changes from that. Revolutions are not started by "being nice". Use your fire. Shout out the injustices, together with millions and billions of other women, until your throat is hoarse, and you feel whole again.
Never let anyone make you feel ashamed, inadequate, and LESS, again. You have control of your life, not them. You have value as a person, as YOUR OWN PERSON, no matter what, regardless of anyone else's judgement.
I think that anyone who criticizes Lovelace's poetry for the presentation and the way the stanzas are scattered on a page seem to have missed the point: these poems are all about broken girls and women from abusive relationships, not to mention from a fucked up patriarchal system that hates them for the audacity to exist, and uses them and refuses to listen to them - and this is them trying to put themselves back together again, helping other women along the journey (remembering that you are not alone is always important). It is supposed to be messy, because it is. Life for women is bloody and messy, one way or another. Walking on the burning coals of struggle and strife.
Writing poetry without the conventional rules laid out by men is a healing and weight-lifting process. Lovelace is making her own rules, told the way she wants, using her own voice. A voice that reflects those of countless other, diverse women, all on the same marginalized burning boat.
And these voices are angry, persistent, and they will continue to be: until the woman, witch, whoever she calls herself and is called, is accepted as a human being.
'The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One' - the dark, blunt, burning, personal elixir to rape culture. (Plus the mythical friendzone).
Final Score: 4/5
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