Catherine Pierce
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catherinepierce.bsky.social
Catherine Pierce
@catherinepierce.bsky.social
910 followers 560 following 22 posts
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
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catherinepierce.bsky.social
This summer through Studio & Craft: Creative Burst sessions! These are low-stakes-but-high-focus sessions to kickstart new work or move the needle on work in progress. An optional prompt will be provided at each session.

Open to writers of all genres and experience levels!

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!
May 14, 2025 at 11:41 AM
catherinepierce.bsky.social
This June I'll be offering a virtual 4-week workshop through Studio & Craft--if you're looking for community, feedback, prompts, and a balance of structure and flexibility, please join us! Workshop caps at 10 participants.

Questions? Please reach out!

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!
May 13, 2025 at 8:05 PM
catherinepierce.bsky.social
Hoping to jumpstart some new poems this summer? Looking for a writing community or focused feedback? Today I'm launching Studio & Craft, a poetry community offering generative sessions, workshops, and manuscript consultations!
Studio & Craft
Studio & Craft is a poetry community offering generative sessions, workshops, and manuscript consultations.
www.studioandcraft.com
May 12, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
hanvanderhart.bsky.social
If everything ends,

why are you sharpening your sorrow

—Martha Silano
May 8, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
darbylyons.bsky.social
from Dark Fields of the Republic. W.W. Norton, 1995.
In Those Years Adrienne Rich In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I
January 21, 2025 at 2:59 PM
catherinepierce.bsky.social
Seems like a good day to share this poem, originally published in About Place journal. Here's to turning over the mussel shells.
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.
January 20, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
millietullis.bsky.social
Southern poets! Apply and share the call:
www.southarts.org/grants-oppor...
Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts | South Arts
The Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts support, acknowledge, and celebrate writers in our nine-state region with $80,000 in awards. The genre for the 2025 cycle is Poetry.
www.southarts.org
January 14, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
poetmarcuswicker.bsky.social
Dorianne Laux w/ the plainspoken elegance
January 9, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
martyoutloud.bsky.social
A little Jane Hirschfield for a tender, tender Wednesday.
November 27, 2024 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
ryanvine.bsky.social
Katy Didden
November 16, 2024 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
riverriverbooks.bsky.social
Happy National Poetry Month! We’ve got a kickstarter for @riverriverbooks.bsky.social, full of good rewards, from digital copies to custom poems and manuscript consultations! Share with a friend? 🌊🌊 Help us continue to get poetry to readers. Support the places you love, y’all 📚💙
River River Books: Poetry Distribution
Help us ship poetry to independent bookstores, libraries, and readers.
www.kickstarter.com
April 1, 2024 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
kathyfagan.bsky.social
thx to poem-a-day & steve bellin-oka for choosing to run this new one of mine today💙
poets.org/poem/what-i-...
November 20, 2023 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
rika99.bsky.social
perhaps you too need this Jenny Browne poem today…
November 13, 2023 at 1:46 AM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
kathyfagan.bsky.social
Grateful to Charif Shanahan for guest editing this impressive issue of Poetry magazine dedicated to lineage & influence, & very happy to have 2 new poems of my own included among the dazzling array of poems here.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
November 2, 2023 at 11:18 AM
catherinepierce.bsky.social
Happy to have two poems in the new Water~Stone Review, including this one about a formative moment in a Blockbuster parking lot.
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 my mother said What’s so funny because I couldn’t stop laughing and I said Nothing which was true nothing was funny at all I was laughing because as I’d let my rage rise Cover of Water~Stone Review, with title written in white above an image of a red rollercoaster and several castle turrets.
October 30, 2023 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
amorak.bsky.social
One of three short poems by me in the new issue of Smartish Pace.
Darling Almost immediately, in our first moments on this planet, we learn to turn our faces toward what we desire. We spend our lives repeating this gesture. This morning, a late snow, and I lift my eyes to the icy sky. Save this under beauty. Save it under hope.
October 25, 2023 at 12:29 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
ecotheo.bsky.social
We are now open for submissions through the end of the month & look forward to seeing your work that explores themes of friendship in the more-than-human world
Submissions — EcoTheo Collective
www.ecotheo.org
October 16, 2023 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
ctsalazar.bsky.social
This incredibly ecologically aware love poem from Stacey Balkun ✨
October 10, 2023 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Catherine Pierce
simeonberry.bsky.social
“He’s made of rage and tinted glass, and we’re / made of desire and what if and what I want / to say is, Dude, we have a room, but we / got hungry. Every three days we have to eat / or get mimosas or get yelled at by you.” —Andrea Cohen, “Springfield” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
“Springfield”
“Get a room, the dude in the blue Camaro yells.”
www.newyorker.com
October 10, 2023 at 1:07 PM
catherinepierce.bsky.social
New poems in the new Waxwing! Here's one. (Also, whew, this place seems much better than the other place...)
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.
October 6, 2023 at 7:20 PM