Poetry Reading: Catherine Young

Jun 15, 2022 4:00PM—5:30PM

Location

Write On, Door County Writing Center
4210 Juddville Road
Fish Creek, WI 54212

Cost $0.00

Categories

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JOIN US FOR A CELEBRATION OF GEOSMIN, THE NEW POETRY COLLECTION BY CATHERINE YOUNG

In September of 2020, Catherine Young, a poet and writer from the Driftless region, spent a week in residence at Write On. During that time, she worked on several of the poems that are included in her new collection, Geosmin, published by Water’s Edge Press. We are happy to celebrate this publication with Catherine with a reading and conversation about the poems.

This event is presented free (donations gratefully accepted) and is open to the public.

About the collection

The poems of Geosmin (the scent of soil) are celebration of the startling and shimmering earth, praising creatures of soil, sky, and in-between. Ecologist, farmer, mother, and poet Catherine Young honors land and what it means to be human in this world. Her poems journey through earth, water, tree, and stone, the heartbreak and beauty of seasons across a rural year, and take a panoramic view of aging. Young paints a deep map of Wisconsin’s Driftless region while evoking a place found within regions of the heart.

Catherine Young celebrates land in such a wholehearted way that she nearly becomes the fir tree, “sheathed in resinous green, pulling at the sky / drinking sun,” and, back in her own skin, apologizes profusely for being “rootless” and “warm-blooded.”  One might purchase Geosmin simply for its rich and varied vocabulary, beginning with the title, which we quickly learn, means “earth odor.” This tribute to the poet’s life in the Driftless bioregion of the Upper Midwest is also an homage to the humble and capable people who inhabit the area—as well as a warning that the earth is fragile and in danger.

—Joyce Sutphen, Minnesota Poet Laureate

 

About the author

 

Catherine Young is a writer and performing artist whose work is infused with a keen sense of place. She worked as a national park ranger, educator, farmer, and mother before putting her heart into her writing. Her prose and ecopoetry is published internationally and nationally, and her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. Catherine holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia. Rooted in farm life, Catherine lives with her family in Wisconsin’s Driftless bioregion where she is totally in love with meandering streams.