Catherine Pierce

@catherinepierce.bsky.social

952 Followers 560 Following

Poems & essays * Former Poet Laureate of Mississippi, now Dweller of Delaware * Four books, most recently DANGER DAYS (Saturnalia 2020) * Can be found looking at trees * catherinepiercepoet.com * studioandcraft.com

Text reading: Creative Burst Sessions, Mondays 9-10 AM / 7-8 PM Eastern (alternating weeks) A short, intensely focused session designed for anyone who needs a brief but protected block of time to get some words on the page. An optional prompt will be provided, or writers can choose to use the time for their own work in progress. Open to writers of all genres and experience levels! Session will open 15 minutes early for anyone who’d like to chat and be in community with others; prompt will be given at the start time, followed by a writing hour. Registration open now at studioandcraft.com!
Text reads: Four-Week Workshop: The Alongside Everything Poem, June Wednesdays, 6:30-8:30 PM Eastern. How do we write about wonder during a time of crisis? How do we acknowledge suffering while honoring joy? And how can we write coherently about a world that seems to be pulling our attention in a million directions at any given moment? In this four-week workshop, we’ll work on writing poems that lean into, rather than away from, these questions and contradictions. Workshop-style discussion, weekly readings, line-level and conceptual feedback from instructor on one poem per week, and optional poem prompts. Caps at 10 participants. Registration now open at studioandcraft.com!
Catherine Pierce This Is How We Keep Going By the surf, a mussel shell wedged into wet sand, edge-up. Someone could cut their foot on that, I thought, and turned it flat, while behind me the entire beach rippled with mussel shells.
I Wonder if the Guy Who Catcalled Me in the Blockbuster Parking Lot When I Was 15 Ever Thinks About That --Catherine Pierce When the Jeep revved up what I saw was three or four or thirty guys laughing three or four or thirty heads of blond hair mouths of white teeth and one of them yelled out something about my ass or taking me for a ride I don’t know because it’s been 30 years but what I do remember is that I spun around and said Fuck off middle finger raised like a flare gun and it was not the first time I’d felt the hot fizz of fury but it was the first time I’d uncorked it and I remember how his face slackened and the mouths said ooooh and the blond heads drove away in the cartoon-yellow Jeep and when I got back in the car where my parents and sister had been waiting while I returned the VHS tapes
I've Known You All My Life Catherine Pierce Animal inside me. No phylum for you, no class. You are rough fur, satin scales, plastic, lakewater, steel. Wings and candy wrappers. Seaweed and hooves. You lunge. Whimper. Lunge. Poison teeth. Gentle tongue. Slither into the darkness and find what you will. Dwell in the damp cave. Curl up hearthside. Carry the spider. Devour the bacon. Berries, berries, berries. Howl. Caw. Crawl. The sun is hot and you leap into waves. The sun is hot and you pant. You are lazy for days. You won’t stop running. Reason can’t rope your long neck. Dear beast. Dearest beast. You let me get close. You let me almost touch you.