Friday, October 24, 7 PM: WITCH WORDS 

(free)

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 Witch Words – a story and poetry reading with local poet/activist Carter McKenzie, and former Eugene dweller, language & healing artist, Tracy Chipman, who collectively explore alchemical language that honors and heals.

 Carter will be reading from her most recent collection of poems, The Book of Fire, where through imagined voices, often based on specific court cases, Carter offers a remembrance and exoneration of the victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563-1736. Of the nearly 4000 accused under that law, 84% were women and girls. These poems are a bridge between the living and the dead. They keen and honor the people the dominant culture wrongly accused and attempted to erase. 

 Tracy will be reading from her book Borealis Mundi – Resting in Place, Loss & Grace and new works, in prose, poetry and oral storytelling weaving the alchemical power of transformative language as agents of change & creation through the feminine archetype Mage (the 3rd phase of women’s lives) through lived experiences with the more-than-human-worlds and mythic archetypes. 

 In praise of wild witch women who conjure, generate & co-create life with the more-than-human-world through alchemical language & action. Deep honoring, holding and reparations for all accused, persecuted and executed for so-called witchcraft, whose existence & experience remind us of the vulnerability of these times. May ALL dwell free.

Tracy Chipman, (she/they) MA is an oral storyteller, creative writer and a certified TRE® provider. They weave with ancient & new experiences inviting us into deeper connections with ourselves and life. Tracy resides in Northern Wisconsin, occupying the traditional territories of the Ojibwe peoples. In March 2023 Tracy published her first book, Borealis Mundi - Resting in Place, Loss & Grace. Please visit her website to learn more about her work.

Carter McKenzie (she/her) is the author of two full-length books of poetry, Out of Refusal (Airlie Press, 2010) and Stem of Us (Flowstone Press, 2018), and two poetry chapbooks, Naming Departure (Traprock Books, 2006) and The Book of Fire (above /ground press, 2024). Her work has been published most recently in Her Words/ The Halcyone/ the Black Mountain Press, The Raven’s Perch, the anthology Bookstore Clerks & Significant Others (Tsunami Press, 2023), and periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (above / ground press, 2025). Carter has recently read poems from her unpublished manuscript Falling in the Dark: Poems Against the Genocide for thePacifica Radio Program Free Palestine NorCal Radio.

For nearly 30 years, Carter has studied and sung traditional Scottish Gaelic songs in the acappella women’s group Kitchen Ceilidh. Learning the language and songs of Gaelic ancestors is a connection of spirit with earth, remembered in the bones.

Since its founding in 2015, Carter has been an active member of the Springfield-Eugene chapter of SURJ/Showing Up for Racial Justice. She is also a member of United for Immigrant Justice and Communities United Against Hate. Carter lives in the foothills of Western Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, in a valley that is the traditional homeland of the Molalla Mountain Band.