5 Wicked, Witchy Reads that Defy Gravity
Wicked, the 2024 film based on the iconic musical and book, has already proven to be one of the most successful and beloved movie releases this year. If you can’t get “Defying Gravity” out of your head, or have been scrolling through the hundreds of memes and TikToks about “holding space,” for the song, maybe you wish you could live in the campy and mystical land of Oz for a little longer. These five collections extend the fictional escape for a little longer, continuing Wicked’s themes of magic, justice, and acceptance. Fly through their pages—no broomstick needed.
The Poetry Book of Oz: A Collection of New and Classic Ozian Rhymes for the Child in All of Us by L. Frank Baum
Jump back into the world of Oz with these playful poems featuring Dorothy, Glinda, and other well-known characters. L. Frank Baum pairs the rhymes in this book, intended to awaken each reader’s inner child, with colorful, hand-drawn illustrations from collaborators William Wallace Denslow and John R. Neill. This immersive collection makes a great coffee table book.
Witch by Philip Matthews
Just as Glinda and Elphaba embrace and later must more deeply contend with the mythology of the wizard, Philip Matthews draws on Jesus, Aphrodite, and a larger array of mythic figures throughout his collection Witch. Like the characters in Wicked, Matthews considers what these archetypes can teach us, how we reckon with them, and what they reflect about the world we inhabit. He also explores undertones of queerness, themes that many Wicked fans pick up on, relate to, and cherish. This collection explores how we nourish and care for our own energy while living in a complicated, decaying world, similar to how Elephaba must rely on her magic as her belief in the wizard crumbles.
Green for Luck by Margaret Yapp
Wicked takes the world that we know and reflects it back in more magic and color. It also encourages us to look more closely at the details—like how the flower Glinda places behind Elphaba’s ear symbolizes their growing affection, or how the now classic witch hat Elephaba wears reflects her boldness and unique identity. Green for Luck does the same, taking the details of ordinary life and revelling in their innate strangeness and uncanniness. Like Wicked, the collection Green for Luck resists perfection and looks at what’s beneath the surface.
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One by Amanda Lovelace
Amanda Lovelace’s many best-selling works all interrogate and ultimately reinvent fairytale conventions, paralleling Wicked’s nuanced and humanizing deep dive into a character previously thought of as evil. Elphaba isn’t the villain in Wicked—and neither is the witch in Amanda Lovelace’s powerful feminist collection The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One. Lovelace celebrates the independence and supernatural capabilities of witchy women. She also argues that women should tell their own stories, just as Wicked gives voice to chapters previously overshadowed and untold.
How to Scan a Poem: A Poetry Witch Workbook by Annie Finch
As Elphaba steps into and harnesses her power, we see her reading spells, interpreting spiritual symbols, and learning ancient languages. Annie Finch, a feminist poet who proudly identifies as a witch, has long seen poetry as a conduit similar to spell-casting. She draws on this connection in the aptly titled How to Scan a Poem: A Poetry Witch Workbook, which teaches readers how to understand a poem’s sound and meter for more resonant meaning. Similar to how many describe witchcraft, Finch calls poem scansion “a way of feeling, a way of listening, a way of dancing,” acknowledging that it has the power to transform ordinary life.
Want to learn more about how witchcraft and writing intersect? Read more about this long and storied lineage by reading our interview with self-proclaimed “word witch” Kate Belew or checking out our roundup of witchy women in poetry, including Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.
