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Winner of the Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2022 (Scotland's National Book Awards).
Claire Askew’s electrifying second collection is an investigation of power: the power of oppressive systems and their hold over those within them; the power of resilience; the power of the human heart. It licks flame across the imagination, and rewrites narratives of human desire. It is a collection for anyone who has ever run through their life ‘backwards/ in the dark,/ with no map’ – these bright poems illuminate the way.
How to burn a woman throngs with witches, outsiders, and women who do not fit the ordinary moulds of the world. It is a collection which traces historic atrocities, and celebrates the lives of those accused of witchcraft with empathy, tenderness and rage. It lifts a mirror up to contemporary systems of oppression and, in language that is both vivid and accessible, asks hard questions of our current world. These poems also delve deep into love in all its forms: from infatuations to the bitter ending of relationships. They ask what it is we want, how we might go about getting it, and what its cost might be. How to burn a woman sweeps the world up in its arms and presents it: a rough bonfire of London buses, Salem streets, Edinburgh closes. Askew’s astute, incisive language lifts from every page, throwing sparks.
'There's a great power in Claire's work, and there's a tremendous crafting of imagery. At the same time, her language is simple, but it's intense, and for me she obviously speaks to all generations, but she's a woman of her generation.' - Dr Anne Pia, poetry co-judge, Scottish Poetry Book of the Year (Scotland's National Book Awards)
'These poems are an elegy against forgetting.' - Layla Benitez-James, Harriet Reviews, Poetry Foundation
"In this book of spells, Askew stirs together smart, modern poems about whisky, heartbreak and male-female relationships with a darker sequence about our “foremothers” who were persecuted as witches. How to burn a woman is full of hard-won wisdom and beauty. The vibe is Kim Addonizio joins a coven." - Clare Pollard, poet
'It’s a stunning collection, full of tenderness, love, righteous indignation and wit.' – The Scotsman
‘Written with assurance, these poems feel like the work of a poet who is at the top of her game. They arise out of Claire Askew’s deeply researched investigation of the deaths of women convicted and executed as witches, and she brings them back to life with compassion and well-justified fury…. This is important and profound poetry that reclaims the wisdom and strength of our forebears.’ - Mandy Haggith, Northwords Now
‘Since her first poetry collection This changes things was published in 2016, Askew has been busy establishing herself as a brilliant crime writer… and now returns to poetry with this searing collection of spells, power and love.’ - The Bookseller
‘Bloodaxe has just announced the exciting second collection from Dr Claire Askew, How to burn a woman. Through poems of witches and outsiders, of women who lived on the fringes of ordinary, Askew dives into an exploration of love with her incisive language, poetic tenderness and electric rage.’ - Beth Cochrane, The Skinny
‘Finding a conduit to her own re-definition of womanhood in the form of the embattled seventeenth century witch, Askew establishes a kind of archetype of suffering. Intersecting her narrative thread with poems of pain, recalcitrance, defiance and abject fear, her ‘testimonies’ are sometimes delivered in the voices of the lost, precisely as they act to reinforce her own sense of identification with their memory… Claire Askew’s collection is a vigorously honest prosecution of grievance, a needful resetting of cultural history, and a triumph of resilience.’ - Steve Whitaker, The Yorkshire Times
‘…a vital, powerful book that commemorates those persecuted for witchcraft over the centuries, along with reflections on being an outsider, on love in its myriad forms, on smiles that cut like knives, and the loneliness of the Loch Ness Monster.’ – Nicola Meighan, introducing How to burn a woman on The Afternoon Show, BBC Radio Scotland
‘World Poetry Day brought the chance to read the latest Scottish Poetry Book of the Year, How to burn a woman by Claire Askew… A trapped Nessie speaks out in the first poem… More unsettling worlds, past and present, jostle out of the pages as the poet lifts you into Highland skies or to search a horror house, and casts a spell with a fiery parade of Scottish ‘witches’.’ – The Inverness Courier