Observations upon Witches

E N D OF T H E L I N E P R E S S
93 Charles Street West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1K6

Copyright © Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez, 2024

First edition, 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced in any

form whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except
in the case of brief quotations included in critical reviews or essays.
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Published with the generous assistance of the Queer and Trans

Research Lab at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the
University of Toronto.

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Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today,
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this land.

Gutmann-Gonzalez, Mandy, author

Poems
Issued in print

ISBN: 978-1-7381784-0-7
 For my mother, a witch.

Who sayd, “Don’t forget you come from a long line of witches.”
 — C O N TA I N S —

Examination of Sarah Good, Muttering Witch

1

Examination of Rebecca Eames, Pin-Sticking Witch

3

Examination of Bridget Bishop of the Red Bodice

4

Confession of Sarah Good, Hungry Witch

5

Examination of George Jacobs, Sr. of the Two Staves

6

Examination of Martha Carrier, Queen of Hell

7

Examination of Tituba, Shapeshifting Witch

11

Diseases of Astonishment
15

Second Examination of Tituba, Who Makes

a Witch Cake and Feeds it to a Dog

35

AFTERWORD
39
God’s infinite and absolute sovereignty were
conceived in terms of legal authority.

SUSAN HOWE , M Y E M I LY DIC K I N SON

 E X A M I N A T ION OF S A R A H G O O D ,

M U T T E R I NG W I T C H

[ MARCH 1, 1692 ]

1. nott; nott; 2. I say nott; 3. I say I had, in hurtang the children, no

hande; 4. handless from leather hushh of sailing whip to splitting
weil; nott with venom grain or poissonne rain have I afflicted them;
nott with spell to nightmare hatch or yell of wildernass echoing;
nor urin cake (yell-ow) tantalized by bake; nor with pins or penny
nail stuck in flesh cloathes hideth; nor with backwerde rhyme in
ears warmly whispered to scatter minde lik winde scatters finchas
on a feld; nott with rot or rod or wood; 5. wasn’t it god testad
through plagues of water turned to blod; through plagues of
frogges, lice, flyes; through plagues of lifestock pestilance; through
[…] boils; […] plagues of hail; who was it tested us through
plagues of locusts?; who was it gave us the exxam of plagues of
darkness?; wasn’t it he who flattened firstbornes?; wasn’t it god
that masoched?; 6. isn’t it true that when the devell acts tis because
god alloweth?; if he alloweth should we withstand him?; 7. I who
was once held in god’s knapsack of shining persons have fallen
thru a frayed hol; 8. yet mine are two hands cleansed as an island
bathd in rain; two hands scrubbed until raw; two hands by purity
engraved; 9. still the devell lies, somehow, in the promontories,
peering into us from cliff-edges, restang his chin on a rock; still he
pummels us in god’s embankment; still he is unshe athed through
our unpunishments; take heed on he the headland; still the devell

— 1 —
froth dogge mouth; how tis my fault when he rideth forth, a
cresting wave upon this beach of sinners?; I by some invisable
hande pushed forthe; tis more lickley I beewicht than be a wi’ch.

— 2 —
 E X A M I N A T ION OF R E B E C C A E A M E S ,

PI N - S T I C K I NG W I T C H

[ AUGUST 19, 1692 ]

Q: so? A: y'r owne daemon is sanctioned. Q: & that the devill

appered to thee lik a colt very ugly: the first: time. A: a ragged girl:
I did it by stickang of pins. Q: but did thee afflect Swan? A: yes: but
I am sorry for it: Q: where had thee thy spear? A: examine my fet
if you will: I had nothynge but […]: Q: but was it with thy body or
spirat thee caim to hurte thes birds: A: with my spirat: Q: can thee
ask them forgaveness? A: I will fall downe on my knis: Q: who
was with thee when thee afflectad Swan? A: I was usually with
myself and the selvs that hange around it: Q: the woeman of the
house had a pin stuck into her foot: but: she sayd she did nott do
it: thee? A: Neither: unless I were the malicious floorbord and she
bare-treading: Q: are thee nott capable of such transformations?
A: doth nott the devill too threaten: [to tare] you [in peices]?

— 3 —
 E X A M I N A T ION OF B R I D G E T B I S HO P

OF T H E R E D B O DI C E

[ J U LY 2 9 , 1 6 9 2 ]

Are we sure this is a woeman? Say: ah. The evidence doth endanger
a handred tymes. Bridget Bishop’s distribution: she came to us a
handful of sand burnang. She sayd, Wh’t. Said, Go ahead, what
is broken in others in me sea-goeing. We sat in view of her hande
suspectang she had planted it on that booke, she sayd never
handled a thinge but a defarmed candle. She opened the pane
like a page, casually distorted the sun into a blindang squar. Then
we ask't her what she was. She replied that she had, because she
infects the heat: ah. We told her to take her tongue and holde it
togather. She thus adjusted throughout tyme and rose. Said, I go
about it unsiffe and then som. We ask't why she did nott sheath
[ilegible wurds] or the kniffe?
ah: she sayd

— 4 —
 C ON F E S S ION OF S A R A H G O O D ,

H U NG R Y W I T C H

[ MARCH 1, 1692 ]

[…] so, nott wyshing to be god’s frite, I had myself coppice-hid:

but just as hunger coerces cornered rabbit to wolfe jaw, I’ve seen
myself around from door to door, where byestanders say byes with
earth stuffs: rain spit, rain rocks in my direction […]: ready am I
to confess my hunger: oh god have mercy on this humble corpse
which flattened loww by desparetion, partook in the followang
mischaffs:

1. myself turned into a rabbit and ate my neibor’s

lettuce.
2. myself turned into a snake and devaured my
neibor’s hen egges whole.
3. myself turned into a little girl and sucked on the
teats of my neibor’s cow and drank till full.
4. myself turned into a ram, mounted my neibor’s
sheep, and took the exxtra lembs.
5. myself turned into a pail and slurped my neibor’s
butter as I churned.
6. myself turned into a goat and ate my neibor’s
horse whyp like jerky.

Thus I passed my hunger onto my neibors, who call me unsavory

though I taste of their groceries.

— 5 —
 E X A M I N A T ION OF G E OR G E JA C O B S , S R .

OF T H E T WO S TA V E S

[ M AY 1 0 , 1 6 9 2 ]

I’ve been useful and knew it. Spectral evidence: one person, at
once, in two places, this is […] witchery. [Very often (too often, to my
taste)] Law hails me. Law cheers me on. Snakes pour out of Law’s
mouth and digest my alibi. Law will circle any form. Law will lasso
whosoever in Satan’s tail. Though I maintain a natural trademark,
how can I help it if you copy my face? [I have been photographed
and knew it.] The Air, a fragile Fabric through which visible and
invisible worlds carry on a conversation. (Dawn watches us all.)
I’ve rent this cloth or […] you’ve Exposed my Negative. [Now,
once I feel myself observed by the lens,] you're in the Acid Bath of Law,
developing my Latent image. Think me a snake? My image is
easily blown away by the wind. My molting visits these crazy
people at night & [everything changes:] yes, my doppelgänger did
pierce their flesh with needles, and now the needles cascade from
their mouths. It is evident. Yes, my specter hit my servant with
these staves. What would you have me say? [I constitute myself
in the process of “posing.”] Well, hang me, [I instantaneously make
another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image.] In
rearview mirror rears the devil: run.

— 6 —
 E X A M I N A T ION OF M A RT H A C A R R I E R ,

Q U E E N OF H E L L

[ M AY 3 1 , 1 6 9 2 ]

Q : You, Alleged. Once a spoilt child, three tymes a rotten lady. You
multiply pain in a rain of pins, therefore […] fruit to be exploded
by the Wheel of God. You bore a bastard, bringing a sour taste to
everyone’s mouths. In the Grip of the Divel, [torn].

HER FE ET
DO NT T OUCH
TH E GR
OUN D

A : [holes]

Q: You. Fell in Price Tag so did y'r soul shed golde each infant
is born with. X-raying y'r adult soul we have found it thorough
clenched into coal. We punish those benashed from God’s pastur.
For Lamb of God is nott Lamb of the Alleged. Allegedly, they call
you Colt that walks on front leggss solely, hind huves in the air
perpetual with devios kicks.

A : [holes]

Q : Y’r alleged evil swept the towne like a smallpoxxe. Persons ded
upon deys.

A : [holes]

— 7 —
Q: Seven, worse, of these were relitaves.

W OE WO E
THR EE CA LL OUT
IN WIND IN
G SHE ETS “NI
ECE”

A : [holes]

Q:Look at thee, a rampent hag. Observe these afflictad. They fall

when you look as if by Instrament.

A S I F SH E
HEL
D US UP
WAR
D BY ST
RINGS

A : [holes]

Q: Y’r wits allegedley visat at nite, torment upon their bedde in

the [...] of a Cloud of Bat landing blindlay on thy Hayr.

A : [illegible due to fold in paper]

Q: Words lye: act. Allegedlay, y'r bodie in spectral forme Clapped

outside the house and a Cloud of Bats clustered through the hol
the Clap slapped off the window.

— 8 —
 BLA NKS
TH
E BATS FI LL

A : [holes]

Q: Thy alleged blood is a stain upon these lands. Thus, we cannot

lett it cycle within y'r body more, no, norr through the bodies of
y'r cheldran which are but Faucets of Evil, for the Sap of Witches
runs Bittar down the Tree. And Lamb of God is nott Lamb of the
Alleged.

T HE
G R O
U N D FA
LLS A S IF T
O H O LD US

A : [holes]

Q: Therefore, Squeeze Confession out y'r sons Richard (18) and

Andrew (15) by experiment: tying Heads to Heels so blood rushas
out Noses in a Vivad Strem, which falls upon the Eyes, so they see
their evil and repent through Visions of Plasmae. Thy daughter
Sarah (7), Little Cooperator, confessed she’s been witched since
six when you presented a booke [...] an allegade red, which she
toched. An inkwell wherein Swam Blood. We continue to Milk
Confession until Drops the last Drop. For the Wedge of y'r alleged
keeps hell’s door Ajar and germy devils gushe therefrom to our
Locale.

— 9 —
A : [torn]

ESCA
LATE

Q: Histories wedge us to [our] alleged. Propagate pain, propagate

allegedly. Each finger shall pointe. Escalate the elegy, escalate […]
the alleged.

— 10 —
 E X A M I N A T ION OF T I T U B A ,

S H A PE S H I F T I N G W I T C H

[ MARCH 1, 1692 ]

“Something appears” “some shape” “in yr eye” “sometimes I am

hogge” “sometimes I am dogge” “dust & wishful thinking mites”
“my apparel” “fear crumbs” “& hysteria bread” “see anything”
“goe ahead” “w't you hear” “is w't you sayd” “is familiarity is”
“Truth itself” “woah ther” “Horsy” “woe is me” “could be dream,
could be” “for ought I know” “the deval hold” “private court” “in
yr ear” “ask me” “how I know” “ask me” “to [illegible] myself” “to
yr majesty” “yr Sov'r Lord & Lady” “ask me to explain myself
(to myself)” “within yr tyranny” “undress this this” “unclasp &”
“find me” “I am like” “(tell me)” “I am like” “w't I am” “I am
such like” “I am such & such” “sun in yr eye” “blight to the land”
“land-like” “ravage savage” “w't am I but like unto” “a thinge like
an ‘a’ ” “Such thinge” “I am whoe” “wold have” “done itt” “itt =
x” “wold I were” “w't wold have you” “be” “w't wold have had
to” “embroidering blame” “blue flame renders the edges” “sundry
accusations” “gnarly accessory” “deval’s advokette” “yr heyday”
“w't you want me doe I will if” “w't you wold want me doe is”
“impossible” “I am one like” “sleep” “comes to you” “easy” “ease
yr pain” “on me” “yr handkerchief” “I travel across yr brow”
“wipe by” “w't Service!” “able to” “wring me” “dry” “how long
can you forestall” “sleep?” “I am one whoe” “you identify”
“nightmare deer” “dreary lullaby” “humidity’s thumbprint” “say
sometimes” “say always I” “tymes after tymes” “(yr handkerchief)”
“convenient covenant”

— 11 —
“say liknesses” “say my shape” “copy catted by the deval” “say my
shape” “reprodusable” “scanned & sent” “on a poale over the land”
“to doe someone’s biting” “did nott get caught up” “in the trees”
“surpassed them” “I am as those that” “I am” “charges forward”
“(Horsy)” “Charges” “charges me w’th” “I am charges” “bids me
Entertain” “w’t was itt like?” “you want to know” “w't got me”
“to doe itt” “among other thinges” “you ask:” “tell us, how is
itt don?” “ask if” “have I pinched hir this day in the morneing”
“in a pinch” “I will doe” “itt sucks whyle” “you are Examining”
“the yellow bird” “canary feathers on” “muddy cobblestone” “an
island bird w’t” “nudity, what” “was that cretur?” “can’t know”
“noe” “w’t itt is” “can’t name itt” “know” “how itt looks” “hath
Wings” “a head like a woeman” “a yellow bird” “Whoe was that”
“Some tymes, Some” “tymes my apparrel” “that was a good way
out” “me/he (the deval)” “itt may be you sent a specter” “w’th the
Knif” “shee Complayned of” “I hath bin” “seen by the Children”
“to Suck” “(yellow bird)” “itt sucks” “betwene the fore finger &
Long finger” “upon the Right hand” “I expect from you” “more
hurte” “(hurte then)” “as too from the Children” “the hole con”
“gregationa” “ffirmed the Same” “(Guilty!)” “being Taken by”
“phansy—” “in a pinch” “I will doe” “but I goe into the pinch”
“I investigate the pinch” “whyle you investigate me” “Searched?”
“they had almost thrust me” “into the fire” “when I cast a shadowe”
“my image is” “usable to me too” “I am entering the knot”

— 12 —
“& am I a/an Woemen?” “am I a/an Negro?” “am I a/an Indian?”
“all wrapped up” “whoe was that cretur?” “hath Wings” “a head
like a woeman” “a yellow bird” “noe, I am nott thy shadow”
“(though I did scratch back)” “(could not see why not)” “woe
hurt a/an [scratched out]” “taken [torn]” “a/an?” “my owne
Country is gone” “I was borne homesick” “I keep my homesick”
“betwene the fore finger & Long finger upon the Right hand” “I
seek the company of other creatures” “—presently a blue fly”
“yawned its bottle-mouth” “& sayd: ‘whoe hath” “pretty things”
“here besides” “pretty things?’” “tobbacoe” “cottan” “rumme”
“pinapple” “subtleties of sugarr” “say Serv” “say Property” “but
the bird hath me” “see?” “can’t have me because the bird hath me”
“I am the property” “of other Creatures” “I mean the prophesy”
“when I say” “where doth itt Keep?” “I mean where doth” “the
little yellow bird” “keep me?” “rigardless” “despit yr best efforts”
“I Saw noe Trees, nor path” “was presently ther” “yes & have
held fast” “a good whyle” “been traveling across tyme & back
againe” “hath one of these birds” “am a messengar for” “my past
& my future editions” “being inside being” “to excavate history
from lice” “wold nott have itt” “any other way” “prayr tyme”
“lice tyme” “Stoped my Eares” “to yr words tyme” “wold nott”
“submit to” “phobos” “of which you are” “obsequious underling”
“I am nott yr shadowe” “but I stood before the fire” “history that”
“ball of rubber bands” “all wrapped up” “elastic” “soe usable”
“across history & back” “you wold I ride upon” “history” “(y'r
phaentasy)” “to doe yr dirty work” “on a stick or poale” “but in
truth we Ride” “takeing hold of one another” “& my image is”
“usable to me too”

— 13 —
79
— DI S E A S E S OF A S T ON I S H M E N T —

46“...the Sieve and the Scissors, the Bible and the Key,
and the White of an Egg in a Glass.”

DEODAT LAWSON

13
 V

E N
U

L
G

— 17 —
 E
G
R
G

E W

H
T

I
A

W
E

N
S

I
D

D R

E O
P P

— 18 —
A K

B L

U I

T M

T R
E

O F

B
M
O

Y
L

S S

— 19 —
 T E

H
S
A E O

P F
S

H
O

S
U U
B

R
A

N
S
D

— 20 —
C

O
I

A T O A

L N

C I

I
F F

N
O N

— 21 —
 W

U
E
T
P

R
M

O
U
G A

O
T T

T S

H
S D

A
M

— 22 —
 T H
K R
T H
N O
K R
I T H U
N O
R K R G
I T H U
D N O H
D R K R G
R I T H U G
D N O
R i U
D N K R O
R i T H U
D N K R O
R I T H
D N K R O
R I T H
D N K R
R I T H
D N K R
R I T H
D N K
R I T H E
D N K W
R I T A E
D N K W
R I A E
D R W
E A E
R W
D E E
D R A W
U D E E
D R A W
D E E
D R A W
D E E
R A W
D E E
R A W
E A E
R W
A E
R W
A E
W
A E
W
A E
W
E
W
E
E

— 23 —
 A H”
F D S C
E S
O R “W
E O I
G Y H
D O F I I
T
M N S
U H W
A G H”
R S E’
K
I A D
I “W
N Y
N “W H
E I F
G H I
N L I S
T G Y S H”
O

— 24 —
CA ST UP

ON H E
LL
O
R

CAS T IN

TO PL AY

— 25 —
V IO LE N

CE

HUR RI

ES TO A N

F RO

IN TH E

R OO

— 26 —
 F I R ETOA D

— 27 —
F A C

E T H

E A N

I M A

L F A

C E S

— 28 —
 O
NH
A ND
SA ND
K NEES
W EVOMI
TPINSH A N
DSW ITHPINS
ER EC TDR AGGED
TO
HE
LL
B
YT
HE
A IR
TH
EH
UR
TI
NG
SL
EE
PH
A IR

— 29 —
A PU LL TH ER IP

A N D

A PI N

G OF SH E

G OD T H

E W IT CH B

E UP

— 30 —
H K C A B N W O
E I R
R N E
B T H
L H S
A E K
C C
K I
T L
O E
N U
G
I

— 31 —
HER
HE A
DS
OU T

VA
U LT
IT

R IP L
SK A
IN W SI NG

W IT H S IN

HARM

MON E

WH

EN

SH

IS

SH U T

UP!

— 32 —
 S E C ON D E X A M I N A T ION OF T I T U B A ,

W HO M A K E S A W I T C H C A K E

AND FEEDS IT TO A DOG

[ MARCH 2, 1692 ]

“knot me” “in y’r story” “I am yr Covenant” “w’th the futur”

“many fine things” “long agone” “accessible through me” “extract
History through me” “the court house scribe is” “a white hand
wryting” “the dates” “in black ink” “I am yr bore hole” “into”
“many fyne things” “& a little more” “must I” “make a mark?”
“any paper?” “did he gett my name” “out of my body?” “I am
yr acquired” “taste” “nettle, thistle, weed” “like green & white”
“promiss[es]” “(spring boughs)” “the deval sayd” “some fine
thinges” “something like creatures” “to be given” “/taken” “a little
bird Something” “was I taken?” “was I Ill?” “I was born homesick”
“—fast forward (ff) to the point” “a gret or little booke?” “did you
sign itt?” “I didn’t, nott yet” “yes, I did” “my soe-called” “(mistris)
mistris” “sett my name to itt” “did you pinch the child” “in thyne
owne person?” “yes, & tomorrow I will hurt it” “againe” “nor
have I ever don soe” “you ask did they” “spake to me” “the spark
of witches?” “I multiply my misery” “they were foure” “they
were one” “each standing” “in their cardinel direction” “a knot
of woemen” “a yellow bird” “—& the rest of the story?” “a
slight of hande” “I was born homesick” “betwene my thumb and
forefinger” “I was born bore hole” “but I digress” “this is yr book”

— 35 —
 Notes on Poems

With thanks to the University of Virginia Salem Witch Trials Documentary

Archive and Transcription Project which was consulted.

Examination of George Jacobs Sr.: Italicized words are from Roland

Barthes’ Camera Lucida: “Very often (too often, to my taste) I have
been photographed and knew it. Now, once I feel myself observed
by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process
of ‘posing.’ I instantaneously make another body for myself, I
transform myself in advance into an image.” The court relied on
spectral evidence to determine guilt of witchcraft. The devil could
take someone’s shape with their permission and use it to torment
others. This effectively nullified the possibility of an alibi.

Examination of Martha Carrier :

The accusations of the magistrates
are interrupted by a chorus of afflicted who interject with bold
but fragmented shards of language that both disrupt and fuel the
proceedings.

Examination of Tituba & Second Examination of Tituba: Tituba,

referred to in the court records as “Indian Woman, Servant,” is
blamed for beginning the Salem witchcraft hysteria: accused
of witchcraft early on, she saved her life by admitting to being
a witch and blaming two others of witchcraft. Because Tituba
was an enslaved person, the only records of her life are the court
transcripts themselves. Tituba herself remains a mystery. Even
her race is debated. She has been treated like a wild card, pliable
enough to make any argument. In writing Tituba’s examinations,

— 37 —
I wanted to avoid speaking for her, and instead to comment on this
dynamic and to point to how little we know. Phrases are encased
in quotation marks to draw attention to the fraught nature of
speech and quotation. Some of this language comes from the court
records, completely rearranged.

— 38 —
 Afterword

Vagabond images. Something in the air. A porousness between the

past and the present. As I read the court records of the Salem witch
trials, I started thinking about the lyric’s vertical time in relation to
archive and history, in particular in relation to the trials. All times
coexist in the lyric. Like history, the lyric looks back, but unlike
history, it has no faith in progress. What would it take to let the
voices of the accused witches, the afflicted (accusers, predominantly
young girls), and the magistrates spill into the present through lyric
time? And what resonances would they find here?
Using 17th century court records of the Salem Witch Trials as a
sounding board, A/An mines the archives to uncover the power and
violence residing within the language of the legal system. As state-
legislated violence, witch hunts were constitutive to the colonial
order, reinforcing what was normal from the aberrant. The court
records echo with the sounds of embryonic empire. Today, we see
the continuation and escalation of such state-legislated violence in
colonial occupation of Indigenous peoples’ lands, police brutality,
the prison industrial complex, abortion bans, the overturning
of Roe v. Wade, and anti-trans and anti-gay legislation, not to
mention neocolonial interference at a global scale. Rather than
regarding the witch hunts as an historical curiosity or speculating
to fill the gaps, A/An transforms the court examination into a
poetic form, a hybrid of legal language and lyric utterance. In these
poems, English becomes foreign to itself, having distorted through
time and slipped through the sieve of law, through the inevitable
erasures of matter and the ideological erasures of the archive. In
A/An, poetry and archive wrestle, shattering these legal documents

— 39 —
that act as gravestones1 and spilling the voices caught therein.
Though I currently live in Massachusetts, I look at this
history from the vantage point of a foreigner. I grew up in Chile and
was born during Pinochet’s U.S.-backed military dictatorship—it
was impossible not to be conscious of the U.S. Empire. One of the
motivations for this project was my curiosity over how the seeds
of that neocolonial impulse can be traced back to a period when
the U.S. was itself colony to the British Empire. This colonial birth
serves an important purpose today: it allows the U.S. to continue
to think of itself as a victim and to turn a blind eye on its awful
power. My position as a foreigner also affected my writing process
which at times resembled a form of translation, listening intently
to the words of the court documents and also to their silences and
working laterally to transform them from one kind of English to
another.
What we have left of these witches are legal fragments, their
brushes with the law. The Law is a Brush combing History’s H/
air. Birth certificate, marriage certificate, property documentation,
death certificate, warrant, deposition, testimony, court examination.
For enslaved persons, the information available is even more
minimal; they only appear if accused. There’s something ghostly
about these scattered trails, these appearances and disappearances.
As I read the court records, I was struck by deeply idiosyncratic
qualities of the language. As a foreigner, I was delighted to be
reading an English both understandable as English and wholly
other. I grew fascinated by the language of law, its strangeness

1 I borrow this idea from M. NourbeSe Philip who writes, “the reported
case is like a gravestone and in shattering that gravestone the voices are
freed.” NourbeSe Philip, M. and Patricia Saunders. “Defending the Dead,
Confronting the Archive: A Conversation with M. NourbeSe Philip.” Small
Axe, 12.2, June 2008. pp. 63-79.

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as well as its awful power. My process was one of erasure, then
replacement and finally accretion. I chose language from the court
examinations that struck me as strange or evocative, then I replaced
that language with my own usually more image-driven language,
and then I added to it and cut and added and cut. Some vestiges of
the original language remain, but most words are my own. Certain
idiosyncrasies in the source texts caught my attention, and these I
tried to pull out and magnify to create legible patterns: kennings
(a figurative phrase that replaces a noun, such as “whale-path” for
“sea” or “God’s beacon” for “sun”); syntactical inversions; archaic
spelling; archaic diction; numbers as an organizing principle
in legal documents; and the capitalization of nouns. The bridge
created through this process is important to me even if the result
is largely invented. It helps me inhabit the tones, textures, intents,
and power struggles present in the original.
The stakes in these trials were high. In the magistrates’ eyes,
the accused were always guilty, and could only save their lives
by admitting to their guilt and accusing others2, bringing death
upon their neighbors in the process. In other words, witchcraft
was contagious. The examination procedure actively multiplied
witches. In Salem, the way witches were inscribed into the law
resulted in more than 200 people being put on trial and in the
execution of 20. How did the law define the witch? The technical
definition of a witch in 1692 was a person who had signed the
Devil’s book. One’s relationship with the Devil (and with God)
was contractual, a covenant. It was a matter of law.

2 Alarmingly, this system inverted the European method for surviving a

witchcraft accusation which required the accused to adamantly profess their
innocence. Of course, the accused in the colony were not informed of this
change.

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 Acknowledgements

Thank you to the editors of the following journals who first

offered a home to these poems, sometimes in earlier forms or
under different names:

Best New Poets 2021 Anthology, guest edited by Kaveh

Akbar: “Sarah Good’s Confession”

Boulevard: “Examination of Rebecca Eames,” &

“Examination of Bridget Bishop”

Colorado Review: “Examination of Tituba” &

“Examination of George Jacobs, Sr.”

Quarterly West: “Confession of Sarah Good” &

“Examination of Sarah Good”

Shrapnel Magazine: “Second Examination

of Tituba”

Thank you to Hugh O’Neill from End of the Line Press for
amplifying trans voices. Thank you for believing in this book and
for creating a truly collaborative process. Everyone should be so
lucky. To Jos Charles, my editor. You transformed this project—
and the next. To MacDowell, it’s magic. Where the project came
together differently and better. To Clark University and my students.
To the Higgins School of Humanities for funding my research in
Salem and providing material support for the text-based visual
work that is an offshoot of this project. To the other institutions
that have supported me along the way: the Stadler Center for
Poetry and Literary Arts at Bucknell, Cornell University, Lambda

— 42 —
Literary, the Center for Book Arts, the Frost Place, the Studios at
MASS MoCA, Hesse Flatow Gallery, the Fine Arts Work Center
& the Ano Asites Artists Residency. To the archives without which
this work would not have been possible: the University of Virginia
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription
Project, the American Antiquarian Society, and PEM’s Phillips
Library. To my undergraduate professors who started me on this
path, a life of poetry: Monica Berlin, Gina Franco, Beth Marzoni,
& Nicholas Regiacorte—deep gratitude. To all my friends. To
Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Valzhyna Mort, Deborah Paredez, and
G. C. Waldrep, for what you have taught me. To Sophia Dahlin
& Robert Whitehead, witchy midwives for the first poems in
this project. To Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, Luisa Caycedo-Kimura,
Regan Huff, Chloe Martinez & Tina Mozelle Braziel, who
helped these poems develop in our biweekly poetry parties. To
my collaborators: Millie Kapp and Cate O’Connell Richards. To
The Ironclad Medusa Collective, my dear “Snakes:” Liza Flum,
Benjamin Garcia, & Emily Oliver. To my parents and sisters,
for their love and support. To Liz, my partner & first reader. To
Gremlin, my familiar.

To the yellow bird.

— 43 —
M A N DY G U T M A N N - G ON Z A L E Z — A / A N

Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez, a Chilean poet,

novelist, translator, and text-based artist,
is the author of the novel La Pava
(Ediciones Inubicalistas).
They teach creative writing at Clark University.
Using 17th-century court records of the Salem Witch Trials as a
sounding board, A/An mines the archives to uncover the power
and violence residing within the language of the legal system.
As state-legislated violence, witch hunts were constitutive to the
colonial order, reinforcing what was normal and what aberrant.
Rather than regarding the witch hunts as historical curiosity or
speculating to fill the gaps, A/An considers the court examination
as poetic form, a hybrid of legal language and lyric utterance. In
these poems, English becomes foreign to itself, having distorted
through time and slipped through the sieve of law, through the
inevitable erasures of matter and the ideological erasures of the
archive: the gaps marked “[illegible due to fold in paper],” and
the silences that remain unmarked. In a poetics of the “[…]”,
A/An engages with textual gaps as lacunae. In A/An, poetry
and archive wrestle, shattering these legal documents that act as
gravestones and spilling the voices caught therein.

Cover & interior design by Kianna Mkhonza

Substantive edit by Jos Charles
Copy-edit by Hugh O’Neill

The text of A/An is set in Sabon, 12 pt.

Printed and bound by Coach House Books, Toronto, Ontario,

Canada.
ISBN 9781738178407

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9 781738 178407