Maleficae

by Emma Bolden

During the European witch trials, over one hundred thousand people were prosecuted for maleficia. The vast majority were women. Many were unmarried. Many owned property. Some were midwives who counseled village women about their health, their pregnancies, and their marriages. Others were simply non-conformists. Maleficae tells the story of one so-called witch: a woman who, like many others, was once seen as her village's savior, but became the focus of the villagers' fear and rage when disaster struck.

This book-length series of poems seeks to re-create the terror and inhumanity of the trials. Incorporating language from trial records to papal bulls to incendiary theological documents, these poems explore the intersection of forces that led to the persecution of people who were deemed different and therefore dangerous -- forces alarmingly similar to those still operating today. At the center of all of this is the woman who was called a witch: her story, her wail from the center of the flames. In allowing her new testimony, in allowing the dead to speak, Maleficae gives voice to the voiceless victims of the trials.

In this incantatory series of lyric poems Emma Bolden finds a new way to write about an old (though still current) subject. This book speaks in many tongues, many vivid, and living tongues.

-- Thomas Lux

Genres: Poetry, Historical Fiction

88 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2013

Reviews

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant collection of poetry that seeks to bring voice to those who were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Bolden is an *extremely* talented poet and prose writer, and this book deserves more attention and distribution. I was in awe of what she did with her research, how she wove it into lyric poetry and created an abundance of original lines and images. It's as if she created her own language from past archaic documents.

Though I loved them all, twisted, turning, earthy, humanistic, "The Witch Remembers" is my favorite poem. It took a few reads to realize how Bolden had structured the poem to be read in two different ways, creating 3 poems in one! OMG. I was stunned. Truly. MALEFICAE could be read as a novel in poems. When done, you feel as if you went on a much longer journey than 69 pages.

Since I studied the history of witchcraft and did a thesis on it, I was probably more fully able than most to appreciate this remarkable contribution to feminist texts (note there are valuable notes at the end). And beyond being brilliant, Bolden also tugs at your heart strings and makes you mourn for the lost mothers and sisters and daughters.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every poem is filled with wonder; each has some miraculous, dark turn that makes me think about the violence inherent in language and our Western/European/Judeo-Christian concept of gender. I really don't know what to say; I'm afraid that trying to explain it will spoil the magic.

One of my new all-time favorites.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I inhaled inhaled this collection today, and now as I am still digesting, it is difficult to come up with the right words, with the right review for a highly intelligent, researched collection that just kind of blew my mind. I found myself alternately raging about how women "witches" were treated, how they were viewed, and how they suffered at the hands of ignorance. When not raging about that, I was so taken with Bolden's style and lyrical landscape, that left me breathless at times, because it was so precise, lovely, and terrible heartbreaking in content. This is not an overly emotional, or retelling of the Salem witch trials, this is something completely new, something vivid, startling, raw, and full of veins pulsing beneath the surface. READ this!

[Greg Bem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuinely uncanny and creepy, but also exotic and beyond any casual understanding. This is a book of poems about and for witches, of which I am not, but I do appreciate this audience and all that the book has to offer. The language alone is enough to rattle some skeletal cages within all of us.

[Alis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of poems that should be read aloud. Not just for the sounds of the words and phrases, but the way they feel in your mouth. Truly a masterwork of sound and rhythm. All incantation and alliteration. Truly a striking and breathless book.

[Christina M Rau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reviewed this book in full for Gently Read Literature. Here's a micro-version: Salem, Massachusetts in the American collective memory evokes the Salem Witch Trials. The events in Salem were not unique. As we find in Emma Bolden's Maleficae, these trials occurred across Europe, prosecuting mostly women who did not fit the ideal of what a woman should be. The collection begins in loosely four parts, each containing its own Liturgy of the Word packed into history, testimony, and the language of accusation, motherhood, and witchcraft. It ends with a section that begins with a formal reading of charges and ends with legacy. The book includes End Notes that can help with the context of the source materials, but the poems stand alone strongly without them. Most poems use caesurae expanding across the page, creating gaps to really take in the unfolding of events. The collection haunts through image, diction, and invasion of blank space through the use of blank space.

[Arielle Hebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this witchy collection every October for a few years now, and I love it more every time. Bolden gives voice to long-ago women who were vilified and burned at the stake for their knowledge of herbs and the body, for owning land, and for not kowtowing to men or townspeople. Fiercely feminist and beautifully crafted, I find myself returning to this collection for the atmosphere, empowerment, and lyrical language.

[Sarah Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just got a hell of a history lesson.