Laura Secord, affectionately known to many throughout the city as Mojo Mamma, has once again created thought-provoking sentiments out of her poetry–but this time it’s even bigger. “An Art, a Craft, a Mystery”, the novel Laura released February 20, is a historical saga written entirely through poetry that tells the story of two women–Lydea Gilbert and Katherine (Kate) Harrison–who are accused of witchcraft in the 1600s. Laura will be having an online reading as part of the acclaimed Line Breaks Literary Reading Series by the Global Education Center in Nashville on March 4, as well as a co-reading with Kwoya Fagin Maples (author of “Mend”) at one of the Magic City’s most charming bookstores in Thank You Books on March 10 at 7 p.m. Laura will also be reading on March 31 at the monthly “Untethered: Poems and Stories” series she co-hosts with Caleb Calhoun at Ferus Artisan Ales in Trussville.
“An Art, a Craft, a Mystery” follows real-life historical figures (and ancestors of Laura’s) Lydea and Kate (Lydea’s niece) as they travel to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in the 1630s, where they enter lives of indentured servitude to pay for the passage. During this period in their lives, they work in the home of Anne Hutchinson, who was later thrown out of the colony for heresy due to her preaching drawing in larger crowds than many of the male pastors and for her beliefs on grace and sovereignty. This intense experience helped Kate and Lydea learn “something from a woman who had to go to trial, who had to stand up for herself against her whole community, and was banished from her community.”
The two women would then travel to the Connecticut River Valley, where Gilbert’s cousins had settled, and end up in two separate towns near Hartford. Lydea–the older of the two–stayed with her nephew Thomas in Windsor, and Kate got married and started a family in Wethersfield. Although they had gone their separate ways, fate would further intertwine their histories as “both of these women were accused of witchcraft. Lydea in 1654 and Kathryn in 1668.”
As mentioned earlier, both women are Laura’s actual ancestors–something she discovered thanks to Secord’s historian and genealogist husband Bill Tankersley informing her that a great-great-great-great-great-great relative was found guilty of witchcraft in the 1600s. Laura immediately felt the need to write about this, but was a bit hesitant because the Puritan life didn’t excite her much at all. Again it was Bill, “who is very well-read and knows too much about every kind of history,” who gave Laura the book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” to read that covered life on this continent before it was colonized. She gained a more established sense of how the people who first called this land home lived, with beautiful villages and established societies flourishing before “all those people were wiped out along the Connecticut River, either by violence or by illness.”
That book ignited her passion to learn more about the time, and she next dove into anthropological texts–especially readings from digs in early colonial villages that showed “life is not what you heard it was.” Understanding the mindset of your characters is crucial in writing historical poetry, but learning about the lives of women in the 1600s proved rather difficult–as Puritan culture forbade them from writing. Except for a few rare instances, like the poet Anne Bradstreet who often apologized for writing in her work, there is not much to read from first-hand experiences.
Laura’s next strategy was researching the daily life of people in the colony, and eventually using a writer’s retreat on the Connecticut River as a reason to visit the area for about two weeks. Secord visited the Plymouth plantation and the Mayflower, where she was able to see informative sights like the tools used to toil the land and the halfway-underground cellar meant to house three people. “I had to find a way to find out what it feels like to live in the 1600s,” Secord shares, “I think I did the best I could, so I really tried to immerse myself.”
The research got even more interesting from there, as Bill was able to get a copy of the court records from that time period on a disk. Lydea’s trial didn’t have as much recorded, with most of what Laura found coming from testimony against her in a book put together by a diligent historian. The court record shows only her conviction, but Laura has been told that although there’s no indication of what happened to her it’s easy to assume the consequences were severe.
The court records also revealed historical injustices such as “a woman had been convicted of having too loud a voice and had to have ten strikes in the stocks in public.” Laura was able to use a map of the area, and where these individuals lived, to tie in some of the storylines to her characters’ lives. In that situation, Lydea lived close enough to be the one that helped this woman clean her wounds.
Just as important to the quality of the book was Laura’s own growth in the world of poetry. She began the book in 2008, and didn’t get much feedback from publisher’s when she originally sent it out. Secord decided to pursue her MFA degree, and didn’t work on the book while in school. She felt called back to the book in 2016, as many of the themes in her writings seemed prevalent in modern America as well. She revisited her novel with new perspectives, tested her poems out in front of live audiences across the city, and eventually reached a point where she was happy with it. The publishing companies were as well.
“I am so excited and so proud of this book,” Laura reflects, “It took me a long time to get it right, and to find a publisher.” Even when she found a publisher, another unexplained delay occurred as the pandemic shut down the same day she signed her deal. While initially discouraged, Secord turned this into an opportunity to create her book cover after a conversation with fellow poet Alina Stefanescu, who suggested Laura stitch the cover of her book with her newfound waiting time. Mojo Mamma did exactly that, basing the embroidery off a poem in the book titled “Bee Whisperer” that describes the vandalism Kate repeatedly faced by the community around her.
The finished work is a thoughtful collection of poems that create an “important book for right now even though it takes place 400 years ago.” Many of the themes throughout the fairly-quick can easily be applied to 2022. Laura sees mirrors of her protagonists in teachers, healthcare workers, and every woman fighting for freedom of their bodies today. “Women who are living their lives and doing the best they can, and are healers and midwives–good to other people. Then they end up being accused and suffering.”
How the two women react to the mistreatment is a theme as well. “Lydea is older. She’s much more reserved in what she shows publicly, and Katherine–Kate–she just can not keep her mouth shut,” Laura shares, going on to say, “Use your voice. Speaking up for yourself is a theme as well. But I hope it will immerse people in the experience of women at that time.” One experience is doing the hard work to build a society, and still being treated with mistrust–something that is reflected in the book’s opening poem. Laura says this inspiration comes from how history does great at highlighting the founding fathers and other crucial men to America’s story, but “women, enslaved folks, and indigenous folks. They made this country possible. If there hadn’t been those people doing that everyday labor, we would not be here.”
Laura has been in love with the city of Birmingham since first moving here from Berkeley in 1977. “I found that this place is the place I was meant to be,” Laura recalls, “That Birmingham has really fed me with a population of wonderful individuals who work so hard to improve individual lives and lives in their community.” That feeling started with the striking nursing home employees she first met after moving, grew while she worked in healthcare in underserved communities, and heightened even further with a steady stream of literary events that have engaged minds and broken down barriers in the city throughout the years. The women’s open mic she hosted from ‘97 to 2001. The Vagina Monologues, which she was involved in producing in the community and then on a national tour. The Sister City Connection, a cooperative of local women spoken word artists from 2010-2017. The Magic City Poetry Festival and 100,000 Poets For Change, both of which she is heavily involved in.
Laura has witnessed her community growing first-hand, and how powerful poetry can be in the process. “What I’ve seen in the last 20+ years that I’ve been doing spoken words is much more community expanding through a vast array of ages, folks both black and white, folks of different genders coming together and sharing and listening to each other,” the poet states, “What I’ve learned is sharing your thoughts and sharing your poetry in this community can be very healing, and it can also be something that opens eyes to lives and experiences that are foreign to someone that lives a few blocks away from you.”
We’re thankful for Laura’s active participation in helping the community grow, and blessed that she chose our ears to test her poems on at events throughout the city. A great read written by a woman with a wonderful heart is a pretty easy sales pitch–“plus it has a really pretty cover.”
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