Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears, and teaches for UEA/National Centre for Writing online. She has published five collections with Bloodaxe Books: The Double Life of Clocks (2002), The Dog in the Sky (2006), The Breakfast Machine (2010), Waiting for Bluebeard (2013), The Anatomical Venus (2019), and Constructing a Witch (2024), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Fool’s World, a collaborative Tarot with artist Tom de Freston (Gatehouse Press), won the 2016 Saboteur Best Collaborative Work award. A book of collage/mixed media poems, Hear What the Moon Told Me, was published KFS in 2017, a chapbook, Maps of the Abandoned City, by SurVision in 2019, and Wunderkammer: New and Selected Poems was published by MadHat in the US in 2023. The Anatomical Venus was shortlisted for the poetry category of the East Anglian Book Awards 2019. The cover of The Anatomical Venus, which features her own artwork, won the East Anglian Writers Book by the Cover Award (East Anglian Book Awards 2019). Her work has been translated into Ukrainian, Polish, Spanish, Croatian and Greek for Versopolis. She lives in Norwich.

• 12   {By the slant of her tone}13   The Waking14   Some definitions of Witch16   The lust of the goat is the bounty of God17    Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast18   Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?19   Another Story20   We are the weirdos mister21   {daughters of air}22   The Answer23   Only Bad Witches Are Ugly24   The Woman of Endor to Saul25   Night Hag26   One Such Tale27   Scry28   Day’s Conversation with Night29   More thoughts about the dark30   The Antihousewife31   Dairying32   {gnats, swarm upon swarm}33   Remedy34   How to Construct an Ale Witch35   New Rules for the Disenchanted Land36   Cackle37   The Gift38   Fetish to Counteract Witchcraft39   {and thus the riddle has been read}40   The Moon’s Halo41   Protection Ink42   At the Witchcraft Museum43   Hexentanz44   Häxan45   The Original Bad Girl46   To a Painter47   All about the hair48   More thoughts about the body49   {a cluster of pretty berries}50   Margaret Johnson51   Elizabeth Tibbots52   Lilias Adie (c. 1640-1704)53   Walking the Witch54   The Devil’s Mark55   More thoughts about the Witch Finder56   {Shall the boys come and hang, burn or roast you?}57   Pendle Tourist58   Bridget Bishop59   The Good People of Salem60   Samuel Parris Dreams of Dogs61   The Makings62   Witchfinder Tour63   Mistley Pond Washes its Hands65   {familiar spirits]66   More thoughts about the moon67   Prick68   Resistance Spells68      Spell to Take Back the Night69      Summoning Spell: The Body70      Disarming Spell: The Enchanter71   {The church-bells began to ring}72   ‘Grandmother Moorhead’s Aromatic Kitchen’73   The Watcher74   The Happenings77   Hang the Moon78   The Menstruous Woman79   Brain Fog80   The Change81   ‘Invidia’ (‘Envy’)82   {shortly after midnight}83   Tick-Tock84   Thirteen Million85   This whole thing was nearly never a thing86   34 Symptoms of the Menopause88   Votive89   ‘The Spirit of the Storm’90   {fire as fire}93   Acknowledgements95   About the collage/poems

Ivory not only calls attention to the historical practices that have been used to subjugate women, she also reminds us of the process of double-vision: here is an entire collection written in an ironic double-vision, a female writing the female through the male historical gaze. The result is nothing less than what Shuttle describes as “a strong explosion in the sky.