Bloodroot: Voices from a Salem Household is a pastoral gothic set against the smoldering backdrop of 1692 Salem. A narrative in verse, the collection carries readers through the contrapuntal voices of an afflicted girl and the woman accused of bewitching her, an enslaved servant living under the same roof. Through motifs of blood, cloth, fire, and bone, the poems explore silence and intimate textures of domestic work, spirituality and madness, girlhood and undoing, raising questions about what it means to be believed and what it means to be blamed.

PRAISE

“Erin Ganaway gives us a world seen through the dual lens of grief and praise. She sees this world clearly, and she renders it in textured language that compels us to feel the words as we understand them. This is the work of the poet.”

–Judson Mitcham, former Poet Laureate of Georgia

“Erin Ganaway stuns with both delicacy and subtle violence, poems of raw energy and meticulous craftsmanship.”

- William Wright, author of Grass Chapels: New and Selected Poems