Witch-Written: 7 Female Poets Who Hexed Us With Their Words
They didn’t write poems. They cast them.
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Photo Credit: Sylvia Plath, ThePoetryFoundation.org
Some women write to soothe. Others write to awaken.
And then there are the ones who write like they’re reaching into your chest, curling their ink-stained fingers around your heart and daring it to beat truer.
These are the literary witches—femme sorceresses whose verses hex, haunt and seduce.
Whether whispering love spells or shrieking grief, the seven poets below didn’t just tell stories, they invoked something deeper.
1. Sylvia Plath – The Deathbride Oracle
Vibe: Bell jar turned blood moon.
Why we’re spellbound: Plath’s confessional magic cracked open the feminine psyche. Her imagery cuts like glass and her metaphors bloom in rot.
Excerpt:
“Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.”
(Lady Lazarus)
Hex Power: Resurrection, rage, and rebellion through reclamation.
2. Ntozake Shange – The Bloodroot Bard
Vibe: Sacred anger in technicolor.
Why we’re spellbound: Her choreopoems sang, wailed and screamed the challenges of Black womanhood. She wrote pain like gospel.
Excerpt:
“i found god in myself
& i loved her
i loved her fiercely.”
(For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
Hex Power: Empowerment as exorcism; goddess made flesh.
3. Edna St. Vincent Millay – The Firebrand in a Fur Coat
Vibe: Jazz-age hedonist with a Shakespearean soul.
Why we’re spellbound: A lyrical libertine, Millay infused her sonnets with sex, wit and feminist defiance. Imagine getting a love letter that also slices your ego in two.
Excerpt:
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!”
Hex Power: Glamour magic and poetic vengeance.
4. Warsan Shire – The Love-Wounded Prophetess
Vibe: Diasporic moonchild in red silk.
Why we’re spellbound: She makes desire feel dangerous and devotion feel like drowning. Shire captures the ache of exile, identity and intimacy in stanzas that sear.
Excerpt:
“You are terrifying and strange and beautiful,
someone not everyone knows how to love.”
Hex Power: Trauma transformed into beauty; mourning as melody.
5. Alejandra Pizarnik – The Shadow Seer
Vibe: Gothic whisperer of loneliness
Why we’re spellbound: An Argentinian poet who turned sorrow into ritual. Her work reads like a séance—delicate, unearthly, devastating.
Excerpt:
“To fall like a wounded animal
in the place that was going to be heaven.”
Hex Power: Mourning as mysticism; sorrow as spellwork.
7. H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) – The Ether Scribe
Vibe: Feminine divinity wrapped in Greek myth and ghostlight.
Why we’re spellbound: As a modernist and mystic, H.D. conjured ancient femininity with psychological depth. She made myths personal and stars feel like lovers.
Excerpt:
“I go where I love and where I am loved.”
(Sea Garden)
Hex Power: Lunar vision, divine hunger, and the sacred wound.
These poets weren’t just writers—they were conjurers of emotion, memory and power. Their words are spells that still shimmer across generations.
If you’ve ever wept for a woman you’ve never met, or felt yourself unravel at a single line, then congratulations—you’ve been hexed too.
If you know a witchy poet who belongs in our coven, please feel welcome to send them our way as we’re always looking for enchanting voices to feature.
