Annah Browning’s Witch Doctrine as Spiritual Handbook
by Mary Ozbolt
Sink your teeth into its side, search for another solar system, graze your teeth against its bones, let yourself lift beyond your territory, only to come shuddering back to familiar ground with a new layer in your mind’s kaleidoscope. Witch Doctrine by Annah Browning is full of individualistic, introspective modesty and harmony with the natural world.
What constitutes “doctrine” in this collection? Annah Browning’s poetry incorporates the overlying precept of witchcraft, specifically in the allusion to the wiccan rede: “An' it harm none, do what ye will.” The poems sing a call to the natural world through community and respect for animals and plants. Browning’s writing is full of gentle humility about the human body, particularly through familiarity with and acceptance of death. Her work fosters a feeling of connection to the moon, planets, and seasons, creating mystique and communion between what is human and what is celestial.
The poems within Witch Doctrine drip with the desire to be secluded from other people in conjunction with an irresistible pull toward society and individuals. An atmosphere of otherness juxtaposes longing for togetherness and similarity, representing traits of the Empath, such as vulnerability, honesty, sincerity, and purity of the heart. This otherness is explored further by the speaker(s) within the poems on death and the afterlife through motifs of ghosts and the preternatural.
Photo of Witch Doctrine taken by Mary Ozbolt
“Witch in Winter” is an exemplary poem in Browning’s collection that beckons the reader into a surreal version of the natural world: “Now, I will have / to be good. I spell out / a message with berries / I leave you some cursive / in thorns.” This imagery creates sensations of enchantment and spell-work through commonly available materials in the immediate universe.
“Witch Lullaby” is a poem that takes the reader to a celestial place, with lines such as “What if my sideways smile / slipped down a little,” which could be read as the moon personified, and, “unbraiding your hair / into waves,” implying the sea. This poem plays with language and love of darkness in an intimate, personal way: “Breath on me, so softly. / Bring me nightmares again.”
“Medium after Trances” addresses how the self affects the other world of life after death. This awareness of impact on one’s surroundings is amplified by how the speaker apologizes for disturbances through confession: “Remind / me tomorrow to tell / you what I have done / in a dream—who I killed.”
When it comes to form and structure, Browning lets the words speak for themselves, leaving the stanzas and lines consistent, tidy, and concise. Most poems are in the form of couplets or tercets. If a poem deviates from these devices, it is usually at the end, finishing with a line standing alone at the end of a single or series of couplets or tercets. This style leaves the descriptive language of the poems to create images and concepts in the mind of the reader without laboring over experimentation. Browning’s use of couplets creates a sonic chant consistent with ritual and discipline.
My take on the book is one of solidarity. Some poems draw me down into the earth, while others fling me across vast spaces. All of Browning’s poems speak of vulnerability, individuality, and the importance of communion with and preservation of what is natural. There is a sacredness and intimacy surrounding the topic of death within Witch Doctrine, which interrogates the afterlife using deep compassion and emotional intelligence. While the poems travel the wilderness of the intellect, the soul, and the mind, they stay true to a specific set of tenants and consistent form, which makes this collection ideal to consult as a creative dogmatic reference book. At its core, it reinforces respect for worlds and beings other than the self, while also encouraging openness and curiosity. It is beautifully responsible as a handbook of poems.
Browning’s writing sits alongside that of authors such as Emily Skaja, who also uses poetry to foster a sense of psychological intimacy and empathy. By exercising intuition with the speaker and the speaker’s past self, Emily Skaja creates a space for readers to be themselves, specifically in her collection Brute. Another similar writer, Anne Barngrover, recalls the natural world to send a message about violence against desire, specifically from a female perspective, in a way that demands boundaries and respect in her collection Brazen Creature. These poets use stark imagery of the natural world and a close examination of personal identity to make their collections companions in a way that empowers and inspires the reader.
Mary Ozbolt is a wiccan poet and English Composition teacher. She was winner of the Sam Ella Dukes Memorial Poetry prize in 2020 and her work has appeared in Ashbelt literary journal. Mary is in her second year of the NEOMFA creative writing program with a concentration in poetry at the University of Akron. She is a mother, feminist, and cat-lover.