Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of two previous poetry collections: The Unparalleled Beauty of a Crooked Line and Barbarians in the Kitchen, as well as a chapbook, Under the Porch, winner of the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. In addition, she has edited several anthologies. Connors, who earned an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, has served as the poet laureate of her town, West Hartford, Connecticut, where she worked as an English teacher for many years. She also runs a small poetry press, Grayson Books.

Books by Ginny Lowe Connors:

Other poems on the web by Ginny Lowe Connors:
Five poems
Nine poems
"A Husband's Refuge"

Ginny Lowe Connors's Website.

About Toward the Hanging Tree:

"The story of the Salem witch trials is familiar to most of us, thanks to history books and popularizations such as Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Here, now, is a poet with the historical knowledge, emotional astuteness, and formal mastery to bring the tragedy alive again, in book-length verse. Ginny Connors' poems seem to live inside the voices of these characters, the urgency of their fears and desires, their deep failings and triumphs. We read Toward the Hanging Tree for its brilliant storytelling--it's a page-turner!--and verbal polish, yes. But we also read it for its profound understanding of irrational prejudice, which can destroy any society which thinks of itself as moral and civilized. This is a book for our time."
—Clare Rossini

"I have never felt the terror and pathos of the Salem witchcraft story as deeply as I have after reading Ginny Connors' masterful, carefully hewn poems centered on Sin ("something coiled up and tight"). These vignettes and narratives come from the very souls of Salem's accusers and victims. Hysteria grips us, nooses tighten our throats, rocks are laid upon and crush our prone bodies. And yet we emerge not with anger but with sorrowing understanding and compassion for all in that most besotted time. Empathy and major poetry skill combine to make Toward the Hanging Tree a gripping, illuminating recasting of our early American nightmare."
—Dick Allen

"This is a never-before attempted, delightful collection of poems relating to the entire story of the Massachusetts witchcraft outbreak of 1692. Through Ginny Lowe Connors' poetic artistry merged with solid research of historic facts, we glimpse the human heart's response to terrifying events."
—Richard Trask