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Midden Witch
The thrilling story of the healers, artists and prodigies once persecuted as witches – from the three-time T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE
In her thrilling fourth collection, Midden Witch, Fiona Benson enters the world of familiars, fables and hedge-magic and focuses on the persistent superstition – the fear and false knowledge – that was witchcraft.
Telling tales of imagined transformations and spell-casting, these poems present a litany of artists, dreamers and outcasts and a study of their ostracisation. The poet looks at how gifted, sometimes troubled, individuals – generally healers, artists, prodigies and almost always women – became scapegoats, victims of societal paranoia and persecution, and were hounded for centuries, often to a gratuitously violent public execution.
In Midden Witch, these women speak back to us with dark humour, insight and real herbal knowledge. Reckoning with middle age, marginalisation, perimenopause and a steady, unstoppable vanishing, this troubled codex of remedies, spells and stories speaks to human fear in the face of the unknown, and a drive to protect our loved ones that transcends all rational thought. At play in the language of archival accounts of witchcraft, this is a dark, eclectic spell-book that witnesses the end-days of magic.
‘Benson is one of the finest English poets writing today’ Blake Morrison
‘No one writes the way Fiona Benson does. No one is as raging, as fearless’ Daisy Johnson
A new collection of Benson’s wise and vivid work is a real occasion... exciting...fully inhabited and multi-faceted’ Guardian
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE
In her thrilling fourth collection, Midden Witch, Fiona Benson enters the world of familiars, fables and hedge-magic and focuses on the persistent superstition – the fear and false knowledge – that was witchcraft.
Telling tales of imagined transformations and spell-casting, these poems present a litany of artists, dreamers and outcasts and a study of their ostracisation. The poet looks at how gifted, sometimes troubled, individuals – generally healers, artists, prodigies and almost always women – became scapegoats, victims of societal paranoia and persecution, and were hounded for centuries, often to a gratuitously violent public execution.
In Midden Witch, these women speak back to us with dark humour, insight and real herbal knowledge. Reckoning with middle age, marginalisation, perimenopause and a steady, unstoppable vanishing, this troubled codex of remedies, spells and stories speaks to human fear in the face of the unknown, and a drive to protect our loved ones that transcends all rational thought. At play in the language of archival accounts of witchcraft, this is a dark, eclectic spell-book that witnesses the end-days of magic.
‘Benson is one of the finest English poets writing today’ Blake Morrison
‘No one writes the way Fiona Benson does. No one is as raging, as fearless’ Daisy Johnson
A new collection of Benson’s wise and vivid work is a real occasion... exciting...fully inhabited and multi-faceted’ Guardian
- GenresPoetry
87 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2025
6 people are currently reading
167 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 28, 2025
This is why I stay a member of the Poetry Book Society. Poetry that is original, dark, authentic and reads like it matters to the author, and ultimately matters to me.
I always dog-ear the poems in a book I may want to return to (sometimes years) later. Typically a book I liked may have say 5 (good collection) to 15 (a favourite poet) dog-eared poems. This one has 12.
The book's theme: witchcraft and that we are not so far as perhaps we might like to think from the attitudes and superstitions of our medieval ancestors. Mothers in particular are both victims of demonising attitudes and a little closer to the demons we fear. But that description is clumsy and reductive. You have to read the poems.
I always dog-ear the poems in a book I may want to return to (sometimes years) later. Typically a book I liked may have say 5 (good collection) to 15 (a favourite poet) dog-eared poems. This one has 12.
The book's theme: witchcraft and that we are not so far as perhaps we might like to think from the attitudes and superstitions of our medieval ancestors. Mothers in particular are both victims of demonising attitudes and a little closer to the demons we fear. But that description is clumsy and reductive. You have to read the poems.
May 26, 2025
Fiona Benson's fourth collection uses the histories of women persecuted as witches as a starting point to discuss ageing, vulnerability, womanhood, and personal loss. Benson's first three collections have established her as an exceptionally talented poet, with a gift for storytelling and precise imagery, as well as a deep empathy, and Midden Witch deepens and expands her body of work. It is, perhaps, her most coherent collection, as it uses the witch as a lens to explore her themes through six different sections. The first section looks at the lives of historical witches, such as Leddy Lister, who walked in her sleep, and Mary Hunter, who, it was believed, could bewitch a horse, as well as witches of fable, such as Jenny Greenteeth. Using Durham County dialect, Benson captures the realities of these women's lives, with the heartbreaking opening of 'Midden Witch' typical of her unflinching gaze:
Once upon a witch there was a widow
just gone sixty, looking older,
mind beginning to wander ... thirteen children,
seven dead ... leaking urine, leaking shit
not the only one in the village but they blamed her*
This examination of the persecution of women continues through sections about accusation of witches, the use of herbals to save lives, and studies of childhood and the care of children, and animals that have a totemic space in our lives. The later poems in this collection bring in more of Benson's own life, drawing on experiences of parenthood and being parented, and, in 'Babushka,' the idea of grandmother as a personal and political connection. Though this work is complex, and always emotionally rich, I found this collection remarkably readable: Benson's work is so compelling that I always felt I needed to read just one more poem before I stopped. Midden Witch is a collection that rewards attention, and is also a virtuoso display of all poetry can achieve.
I can't pick a favourite poem, but I did read 'Snails' aloud to my wife, whose final lines seem to encapsulate a core truth of Benson's work:
We touch each other shyly, mate
in ecstatic waves, exchange small darts
of calcium affection, leave our slick behind us
nacreous and unstable with element of pearl.
We are erotic, beautiful. Listen closely;
we are speaking of softness and survival.
*I don't know how to create the proper spacing in these lines, but I've suggested it by using an ellipsis.
Once upon a witch there was a widow
just gone sixty, looking older,
mind beginning to wander ... thirteen children,
seven dead ... leaking urine, leaking shit
not the only one in the village but they blamed her*
This examination of the persecution of women continues through sections about accusation of witches, the use of herbals to save lives, and studies of childhood and the care of children, and animals that have a totemic space in our lives. The later poems in this collection bring in more of Benson's own life, drawing on experiences of parenthood and being parented, and, in 'Babushka,' the idea of grandmother as a personal and political connection. Though this work is complex, and always emotionally rich, I found this collection remarkably readable: Benson's work is so compelling that I always felt I needed to read just one more poem before I stopped. Midden Witch is a collection that rewards attention, and is also a virtuoso display of all poetry can achieve.
I can't pick a favourite poem, but I did read 'Snails' aloud to my wife, whose final lines seem to encapsulate a core truth of Benson's work:
We touch each other shyly, mate
in ecstatic waves, exchange small darts
of calcium affection, leave our slick behind us
nacreous and unstable with element of pearl.
We are erotic, beautiful. Listen closely;
we are speaking of softness and survival.
*I don't know how to create the proper spacing in these lines, but I've suggested it by using an ellipsis.
November 4, 2025
Count me as another person who's become a fan of Benson's work through finding her via Florence Welch.
This is such a glorious collection of poetry. It veers between recounting the lives of women accused of being witches, apologies to witches, exploring the aspects of nature that are traditionally connected to witchcraft, and casting oneself as a modern witch. I loved it all.
"Once upon a witch there was a widow"
"So we buried you twelve-foot deep
and pressed you under-stone,
brought weights in our pockets...
hemmed you in
and pressed you down
but still it was not enough
still you were not bound."
"I put on my own toad skin, sit with her in the ash and scream, and scream."
"before the ensoulment
when the foetus was still
a rumour, unlooked for,
an obstruction of the womb,
a late period we brought on
with corsets and poison,
screaming hot baths,
needles and hooks;
a stitch we unpicked
before it quickened
became child."
"I need you
to drink me ritually, like wine,
to love me well,
now that I am beyond
the auspices of the moon.
This is my complex,
late-summer flowering -"
"Today I need an exorcism:
there's a dead girl sleeping
at the core of my house,
there are black crows falling
from the roof of my mouth -"
"On the longest night we went with lamps
to the darkest part of the woods and left him there."
This is such a glorious collection of poetry. It veers between recounting the lives of women accused of being witches, apologies to witches, exploring the aspects of nature that are traditionally connected to witchcraft, and casting oneself as a modern witch. I loved it all.
"Once upon a witch there was a widow"
"So we buried you twelve-foot deep
and pressed you under-stone,
brought weights in our pockets...
hemmed you in
and pressed you down
but still it was not enough
still you were not bound."
"I put on my own toad skin, sit with her in the ash and scream, and scream."
"before the ensoulment
when the foetus was still
a rumour, unlooked for,
an obstruction of the womb,
a late period we brought on
with corsets and poison,
screaming hot baths,
needles and hooks;
a stitch we unpicked
before it quickened
became child."
"I need you
to drink me ritually, like wine,
to love me well,
now that I am beyond
the auspices of the moon.
This is my complex,
late-summer flowering -"
"Today I need an exorcism:
there's a dead girl sleeping
at the core of my house,
there are black crows falling
from the roof of my mouth -"
"On the longest night we went with lamps
to the darkest part of the woods and left him there."
May 3, 2025
"...and it's too late to be sorry now—though we're sorry now/she calls our children to the water and holds them down."
Jenny Greenteeth, the birth of Heracles, and the North Berwick witch trials are only some of the motifs that MIDDEN WITCH weaves together into a stylish, affecting poetry collection themed around witchcraft, folklore, and their modern resonances. The most instructive recent comparison point to MIDDEN WITCH is probably Camille Ralphs' After You Were, I Am, which likewise finds its material in English witch trials and religious history. Both collections engage imaginatively with literary language and form, with Benson's poems drawing on regional dialect and, in one case, rearranging the words of Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act. But to my eye, whereas Ralphs' collection emphasises formal experimentation, Benson gradually incorporates elements of her own experiences in motherhood, connecting her own experiences with those of women centuries ago.
Jenny Greenteeth, the birth of Heracles, and the North Berwick witch trials are only some of the motifs that MIDDEN WITCH weaves together into a stylish, affecting poetry collection themed around witchcraft, folklore, and their modern resonances. The most instructive recent comparison point to MIDDEN WITCH is probably Camille Ralphs' After You Were, I Am, which likewise finds its material in English witch trials and religious history. Both collections engage imaginatively with literary language and form, with Benson's poems drawing on regional dialect and, in one case, rearranging the words of Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act. But to my eye, whereas Ralphs' collection emphasises formal experimentation, Benson gradually incorporates elements of her own experiences in motherhood, connecting her own experiences with those of women centuries ago.
October 19, 2025
a volume of poetry all themed around the myths and history of witchcraft, each set based on themes - familiars, herbs, persecution, punishment, etc. I don't know much about poetry, but I enjoy Fiona Benson's work, which slaloms through different rhythms, constructions and patterns. Different but good.
December 24, 2025
Another gorgeous collection from Fiona Benson, around the theme of witchcraft, exploring historical witches, femininity and childbirth, folklore. Particular favourites for me were Jenny Greenteeth, Defamatio, Snails and Bluebells.
Be wary in the woods; the wet blue pools
of bluebells hung with spells
are a well-managed enchantment.
Be wary in the woods; the wet blue pools
of bluebells hung with spells
are a well-managed enchantment.
July 29, 2025
I didn’t love this—but there were some poems I appreciated. Things picked up for me in the ‘Exorcism’ section. Also enjoyed the poem about Hercules’ birth, takes skill to hold attention for 3 pages of poetry.
June 14, 2025
Furious and sensational.
July 18, 2025
Perfect!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews