Geosmin (the scent of soil) is celebration of the startling and shimmering earth, praising creatures of soil, sky, and in-between.
Geosmin paints a deep map of Wisconsin’s Driftless region while evoking a place found within regions of the heart.
“Let us witness / the whirling embrace between / orb and ocean,” writes Catherine Young, who bears witness to the soil, the water and sky, and the amazing richness of a landscape and soulscape that is at once painfully beautiful and alluring and, at the same time, in sad decline. This is “the real America,” she says, “a place / where everyone can freely play together as everything crumbles.” Young is, I think, a fresh and invaluable voice in American poetry, her linguistic strength vivid in each poem in this pristine collection. She’s the real thing, and I celebrate her and Geosmin.”
Jay Parini, author of NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS, 1975-2015
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Catherine Young writes from the heart and from the land, with the keen eye of a geologist and the soul of a poet. In the tradition of Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and Louise Glück. These poems honor rural life and the earth itself, poems concerned with the soil, with water, with the changing seasons, and with language. In short, they grapple with what it means to be human and one part of this fragile and natural world. --
Christopher Chambers, editor Midwest Review
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Worlds within worlds unfold, ambered in words, as we follow her wanderings on the land. Linguistic sensuosity matches the touch of skin on bark, the rocks’ dance, time and space openings from trilobite murmurings to the purple shimmer on Lake Superior’s shore. We roam through a year of change, visit with dairy and goat farmers in the Driftless region, browse in antique shops, and explore the workings of memory. Young’s Geosmin envelopes us in the sense texture of a region, and distills its perfume.
Petra Kuppers, author of Gut Botany
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Geosmin ~ the scent of earth
is one of my favorite words --
and it's the title of my poetry collection
Hardcover $25 102 pages
Support art and this artist.
Ask me to mail a copy to you: $25 + $5.00 shipping
*Is there a library you'd like to donate Geosmin to?*
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Or support your favorite independent bookstore
Ask them to order ISBN 978-1-952526-09-1
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Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal
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Black Diamonds:
A Childhood Colored by Coal
By Catherine Young
If someone were to ask you, Where are you from? What would you answer?
For me, the answer is I grew up in a painting.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal is my personal memoir of growing up in the largest coal mining valley in the world at the time of its collapse.
Black Diamonds explores perception of place through art and experience; it is both ekphrasis and elegy.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal
was longlisted for the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize in 2020.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored By Coal
is forthcoming from Torrey House Press in 2023.
Set in Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley, the memoir contrasts the poetic landscape of George Inness' 1855 iconic painting The Lackawanna Valley with the devastated land of my childhood in the 1960s. Black Diamonds presents a gallery of paintings living within the imaginations of both a child and an adult narrator both portraying the same location. The collection of portraits builds a many-layered landscape through time.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored By Coal is my lament for the people of the unsung valley that powered the nation.
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Black Diamonds:
A Childhood Colored by Coal
By Catherine Young
If someone were to ask you, Where are you from? What would you answer?
For me, the answer is I grew up in a painting.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal is my personal memoir of growing up in the largest coal mining valley in the world at the time of its collapse.
Black Diamonds explores perception of place through art and experience; it is both ekphrasis and elegy.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal
was longlisted for the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize in 2020.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored By Coal
is forthcoming from Torrey House Press in 2023.
Set in Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley, the memoir contrasts the poetic landscape of George Inness' 1855 iconic painting The Lackawanna Valley with the devastated land of my childhood in the 1960s. Black Diamonds presents a gallery of paintings living within the imaginations of both a child and an adult narrator both portraying the same location. The collection of portraits builds a many-layered landscape through time.
Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored By Coal is my lament for the people of the unsung valley that powered the nation.
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September 2023
from
Torrey House Press
from
Torrey House Press
Listen to 2 chapters
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~ Coal Year ~
~ Coal Year ~
"Coal Year" was published in Kestral, Volume 37, Spring 2017
and was nominated for Best American Essays
Read it here: Coal Year
or Listen here :
and was nominated for Best American Essays
Read it here: Coal Year
or Listen here :
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~ A Cup of Tea ~
~ A Cup of Tea ~
"I take the thick-walled porcelain cup into my hands. Words from my childhood spin inside it—Grandma’s words: 'But for the blink of an eye, you wouldn’t be here.'”
Published in the online magazine Punctuate in February 2017.
Read it here: Punctuate
or Listen here :
Published in the online magazine Punctuate in February 2017.
Read it here: Punctuate
or Listen here :
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Read an interview about Black Diamonds and writing
Marshall Cook and Catherine Young March 2017 WLSP Radio
Here: "Writers and Their Words"
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Coming soon:
Coming soon:
Farmwise
By Catherine Young
Currently I am at work on this compendium of our Driftless Area farm life through story, recipes, and song rounds for each month of the year.
By Catherine Young
Currently I am at work on this compendium of our Driftless Area farm life through story, recipes, and song rounds for each month of the year.