3am 
wind seethes in the leaves around
me the tree exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of me the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold onto me
I will not give in
6am
Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.
Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.
I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart:
bleached out like meat in water.
Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red-hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.
At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.
Most will have only one death.
I will have two.
8am
When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise:
I was still alive.
Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.
I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.
Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring then in the forehead
and turn tail
Before, I was not a witch.
But now I am one.
Atwood, Margaret. 1995. April 2008 <http://abeaver.wordpress.com/2006/08/28/half-hanged-mary-poem-by-margret-atwood/>.
By the Student,
This is such a powerful poem as it takes a look at the emotional transformation of an innocent woman who turns bitter and evil after being almost killed by fear-driven citizens. It reminds me a little bit of how Stephen King writes by combining what is happening around her with the stream of throughts playing constantly, which creates a creepy and surreal poem. You're following this woman as she approaches death. What she's feeling, what she's seeing, how much strength she has left...It makes you feel sorry for her, but not quite sympathize since she turns into a bitter witch at the end, which is rather hard to like or sympathize with.
By a Young Girl,
Dear Diary,
It's been a month or two since I've written...I can't remember how long, really. We were greeted with a letter of condolences a week ago saying that Father had been killed in combat. Ironic, isn't it?
This woman gets a second chance at life after being called a witch, while Father dies trying to spread the word of God. Heh.
Maybe she was a witch. Everyone who I have seen hanged has died.
I do not know what killed father, nor do I wish to know. He is up in heaven now and mother may be seeing him soon. She has fallen very ill from grief and there is nothing that anybody can do. I have been taking care of the house, but I need her help. Please, God, do not take away both of my parents and leave me an orphan.
Maybe it would be like having two deaths. Maybe I will become Half-hanged Mary, the bitter girl who came into hatred through no fault of her own.
The funeral was two days ago. There was a closed casket.
God have mercy,
Mary
wind seethes in the leaves around
me the tree exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of me the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold onto me
I will not give in
6am
Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.
Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.
I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart:
bleached out like meat in water.
Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red-hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.
At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.
Most will have only one death.
I will have two.
8am
When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise:
I was still alive.
Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.
I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.
Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring then in the forehead
and turn tail
Before, I was not a witch.
But now I am one.
Atwood, Margaret. 1995. April 2008 <http://abeaver.wordpress.com/2006/08/28/half-hanged-mary-poem-by-margret-atwood/>.
By the Student,
This is such a powerful poem as it takes a look at the emotional transformation of an innocent woman who turns bitter and evil after being almost killed by fear-driven citizens. It reminds me a little bit of how Stephen King writes by combining what is happening around her with the stream of throughts playing constantly, which creates a creepy and surreal poem. You're following this woman as she approaches death. What she's feeling, what she's seeing, how much strength she has left...It makes you feel sorry for her, but not quite sympathize since she turns into a bitter witch at the end, which is rather hard to like or sympathize with.
By a Young Girl,
Dear Diary,
It's been a month or two since I've written...I can't remember how long, really. We were greeted with a letter of condolences a week ago saying that Father had been killed in combat. Ironic, isn't it?
This woman gets a second chance at life after being called a witch, while Father dies trying to spread the word of God. Heh.
Maybe she was a witch. Everyone who I have seen hanged has died.
I do not know what killed father, nor do I wish to know. He is up in heaven now and mother may be seeing him soon. She has fallen very ill from grief and there is nothing that anybody can do. I have been taking care of the house, but I need her help. Please, God, do not take away both of my parents and leave me an orphan.
Maybe it would be like having two deaths. Maybe I will become Half-hanged Mary, the bitter girl who came into hatred through no fault of her own.
The funeral was two days ago. There was a closed casket.
God have mercy,
Mary
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