New Poetry Collection Focuses on Salem Witch Hunt
WEST HARTFORD, Conn., July 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ginny Lowe Connors' Toward the Hanging Tree: Poems of Salem Village is both devastating and inspiring. The depths to which the human spirit can descend are revealed, along with the courage and humanity shown in the reactions of many to the Salem witch hunt of 1692.
Dick Allen, poet laureate emeritus of Connecticut notes, "I've never felt the terror and pathos of the Salem witchcraft story as deeply as I have after reading Ginny Connors' masterful, carefully hewn poems…Empathy and major poetry skill combine to make Toward the Hanging Tree a gripping, illuminating recasting of our early American nightmare."
Richard Trask, himself an expert on the events described in the book, says, "This is a never-before attempted, delightful collection of poems relating to the entire story of the Massachusetts witchcraft outbreak of 1692. Through Ginny Lowe Connors' poetic artistry merged with solid research of historic facts, we glimpse the human heart's response to terrifying events."
In response to questions about the impetus for Toward the Hanging Tree, Connors stated, "My approach to history has always been to focus on the personal—to try to imagine what it must have been like for ordinary people living through extraordinary events. That was the approach I took in my latest book, a book of lyric history (history told through poetry): trying to imagine myself into the hearts and minds of the people of Salem and the neighboring communities that were affected. I've been told this book was a "natural" for me to write, since I was born on Halloween. Also, as an eleven-year-old child, I played one of the afflicted girls in a college production of The Crucible, and the strange tale simmered in the back of my mind for years afterward.
Connors is the author of two previous poetry collections: The Unparalleled Beauty of a Crooked Line and Barbarians in the Kitchen, as well as a chapbook, Under the Porch, winner of the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. She served as poet laureate of her town, West Hartford, Connecticut from 2013-2015. She also runs a small poetry press, Grayson Books. You can find out more about her poetry by visiting her website: www.ginnyloweconnors.com.
Toward the Hanging Tree: Poems of Salem Village
Antrim House Books
ISBN: 978-1-943826-10-0
paperback
96 pages
Media contact:
Ginny Lowe Connors
860-490-6066
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160712/388897
SOURCE Ginny Lowe Connors
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