Katie Ness’s Word Witchery is a terrific guide to find and connect deeply with your own creative mind, as well as the “…lost voices of women poetry-mystics from antiquity up to early 19th century.”
Part one of the book is a very dense with the history of places, art, poems, and songs. I spent a lot of time while reading the first half looking up YouTube videos, pictures, and history for further reading so I could picture or hear what Ness was writing about – this time spent in looking things up was time very well spent. For example, I heard the Hymn to Hathor, beautifully sung by Betinna Joy De Guzman, for the first time after learning about it in this book. It’s certainly worthwhile to go through the book at a leisurely pace and to look up everything that catches your eye or imagination.
Learning of the connection between poetry and spells was also fascinating. As Ness writes, “Poetry and spell casting exist in the liminal realms, they are gatekeepers to portals within out subconscious mind…” The origins of various words are explored (and really fun to read if you’re a bit of an etymologist nerd). There are brief and interesting histories of women through the ages from all over the world and their contributions to poetry, plays, and magic. There were many names I didn’t know before reading them here, which gave me several interesting rabbit holes to go down online.
In part two of the book, Ness leads her readers through various exercises of thought and practise via tarot, the phases of the moon, spells, letters, teas, music, etc. There is something here for everyone, whatever your preferred method of practise, or whatever your strength, Ness has written something that will resonate and spark your own creativity (and if creativity is slow in meeting you where you are, Ness’s words will lead you through).
For the witch and poet in your life, I recommend this book. The only way I could have enjoyed it more is if it were accompanied by a book of full-colour plates of all the very interesting things I looked up online while reading it.
~review by Mara McTavish
Author: Katie Ness
Moon Books, 2025
Pp.: 248, $23.95 (USD)
