I Put a Spell on You: Annie Finch and Kiki Petrosino (2019)

The O.B. Hardison Poetry Series presented I Put a Spell on You: Annie Finch and Kiki Petrosino on October 28, 2019 at 7:30pm in the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre. Two poets explore the realms of witchcraft and womanhood in all seasons of life. Accompanying the reading was a display of rare books on witches and magic from the Folger collection at 6:30pm.

Annie Finch

Annie Finch.

Annie Finch is a poet, translator, librettist, editor, and critic. Her books of poetry include Spells: New and Selected Poems and Calendars, shortlisted for the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year Award. She is also the author of The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self.

Kiki Petrosino

Kiki Petrosino.

Kiki Petrosino's three books of poetry are Witch Wife, Hymn for the Black Terrific, and Fort Red Border. Recipient of a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Al Smith Fellowship Award from the Kentucky Arts Council, Petrosino is a Professor of Poetry at the University of Virginia.

Reviews and excerpts

"Wheel"

Turn me. Touch me. Heal me. Change me.

Seasons of the turning year,

Move me. Make me. Rearrange Me.

Lead me home, again, here.

From "Political Poem"

Bodies, berries, beaks, barns--will all of it bend

& wash under the moon? It feels like this universe is

someone else's calculus, the arc of

a moonbeam in the moral firmament. It bends

& the light is long, but dimming. Such universes.

Here, I draw the arc of two words: just is.