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Jill McDonough's first book gives us fifty sonnets, each about a historical execution. Headed meticulously with name, date, place, they are poignant with the factual, with eyewitness reports and the words of the condemned - so limpidly framed that one forgets the skill that crystallizes all this into authentic poetry.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Early 1608: George Kendall
- October 22, 1659: Mary Dyer
- June 1, 1660: Mary Dyer
- July 19, 1692: Susanna Martin
- June 4, 1715: Margaret Gaulacher
- July 12, 1726: William Fly
- February 25, 1755: Tom, a Negro
- September 18, 1755: Mark and Phillis
- October 21, 1773: Levi Ames
- April 11, 1778: Aaaran
- October 8, 1789: Rachel Wall
- July 8, 1797: Abraham Johnstone
- July 9, 1819: Rose Butler
- April 25, 1822: Samuel Green
- April 22, 1831: Charles Gibbs
- November 11, 1831: Nat Turner
- January 31, 1850: Reuben Dunbar
- August 30, 1850: Professor John W. Webster
- December 2, 1859: John Brown
- December 26, 1862: Chaska
- June 19, 1863: Private William Grover
- April 22, 1864: Corporal William B. Jones
- July 7, 1865: Mary Eugenia Surratt
- November 10, 1865: Major Henry Wirz
- December 12, 1884: George Cooke
- August 6, 1890: William Kemmler
- June 28, 1895: Michael McDonough
- October 29, 1901: Leon Czolgosz
- June 9, 1916: Juan Sanchez
- February 8, 1924: Gee Jon
- August 23, 1927: Nicola Sacco
- August 23, 1927: Bartolomeo Vanzetti
- August 14, 1936: Rainey Bethea
- January 31, 1945: Private Eddie D. Slovik
- May 3, 1946: Willie Francis
- May 9, 1947: Willie Francis
- June 19, 1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
- May 2, 1960: Caryl Chessman
- April 14, 1965: Perry Smith
- January 17, 1977: Gary Gilmore
- December 7, 1982: Charles Brooks
- April 16, 1986: Daniel Morris Thomas
- May 21, 1997: Bruce Edwin Callins
- June 22, 2000: Gary Graham, later known as Shaka Sankofa
- August 9, 2000: Brian Roberson
- August 9, 2000: Oliver Cruz
- June 11, 2001: Timothy McVeigh
- October 9, 2002: Aileen Wuornos
- September 3, 2003: Paul Hill
- May 13, 2005: Michael Ross
- Notes
About the author
Pushcart prize winner Jill McDonough's first book of poems,
Habeas Corpus, was published by Salt in 2008. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford's Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University's Prison Education Program for thirteen years. Her work appears in
Slate,
The Nation,
The Threepenny Review, and
Best American Poetry 2011. She teaches poetry at the University of Massachusetts Boston and directs 24PearlStreet, the online writing program at the Fine Arts Work Center.
