Witch E-Book

Damian Walford Davies

• Herausgeber: Seren
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 20

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

With the narrative pull of a novel and the vibrancy of a play for voices, Damian Walford Davies's Witch offers a thrilling portrait of a Suffolk village in the throes of the witchcraft hunts of the mid-seventeenth century. The poems in this collection are dark spells, compact and moving: seven sections, each of seven poems, each of seven couplets, are delivered by those most closely involved in the 'making' of a witch. The speakers - from Thomas Love the priest, the villagers who slowly succumb to suspicion and counter-accusation, the 'discoverer of witches' Francis Hurst, and the 'witch' herself - authentically conjure a war-torn society in which religious paranoia amplifies local grievances to fever pitch. Witch is a damning parable that chimes with the terror and anxieties of our own haunted age.

Leseprobe

For Cristyn,

who asks me: are there witches?

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 3AE

01656 663018

www.seren-books.com

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Twitter: @SerenBooks

The right of Damian Walford Davies to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

© Damian Walford Davies 2012

ISBN: 978-185411-601-7

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.

Cover image by Clive Hicks-Jenkins www.hicks-jenkins.com 

Printed in Bembo by CPI Group (UK) Limited, Croydon 

Ebook conversion by Flo Reynolds

Thomas Love                    Priest

Nicolas Strelley                Gentleman

Absalom Strelley              Son of the Above

John Jendring

Jane Humfrey

Isabel Gage

Part One

February to April 1643

Thomas Love

We’re in Domesday: meadow,

fallow, plot and gravel pit,

flintwork church a little to the east; 

Great House and cherry grove;

damson orchards blemishing

the light; the river slick

with fish; those millsails beating 

on the pent-up pond. Beyond

lies corn-earth draining

to the sea. Even on rafty days,

keen eyes can see five spires –

God’s needles tacking up the dark.

My garden borders on the deadfold

Drifts of soldiery: fairy rings

of last night’s fires in the wood, 

crosshatch piles of tiny bones,

comet-tails of baggage trains.

Outlandish meetings in the lanes.

Today I saw two strangers fowling

on the common, low sun striking

off their snares. I raised my hand.

They gathered up a brace of snipe, 

barred bodies in a limp embrace,

and stood there, watching. Lent,

at least, is bringing in more light.

I note this intimately at the fire 

The light struck Alyce differently 

this evening, entering through

rich glass to dye and dapple her.

I saw tendrils of the Jesse Tree

about her hair, the Saviour’s

lacerated yellow sallowing her cheek.