Poems by Catherine Anderson

Catherine Anderson’s Everyone I Love Immortal shakes readers into mindful presence. One poem begins, “My mother baked a glass cake, caught / a blue lark to fill it.” Surprise of the “caught” and “blue lark” energize the lines as Anderson creates a portal into her realm. Throughout this masterful collection are magic potions for journeys, love, and transforming loss. This master poet wields her powers beautifully.

--Denise Low, author of Shadow Light, Red Mountain Press Editor’s Choice Award

A speech-impaired brother “extends / his hand in silence to start the rhythm of human connection.” “Not knowing what the woman heard / yet trying to hear it.” “The taste of clover in a glass of milk.” Arising out of losses both personal and cosmic, these poems reach across distances—of language and time and of death and suffering—to achieve moments of “startling intimacy.”

Linda Leavell, author of Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore

Catherine Anderson’s rich imagery immerses us in the physical, emotional, and spiritual geography of her hometown Detroit “where brand names of cars echo/like prayers against the void,” as well as the contemporary Midwest, “the deep center of the country.” She melds this vast sweep of history with intimate portraits of family ghosts imprinting the landscapes of dream and memory. The result is a work showing us “how the present envelops the past/ like an accordion of mirrors” where their “twined whorls” endure, the essence of immortality.

--Maril Crabtree, author of Fireflies in the Gathering Dark

Startling is the word to define Everyone I Love Immortal. Crisp images and seemingly unlikely but perfect comparisons make a reader pause to savor.  Using only a few words, Anderson evokes deep feelings that capture the human spirit as great writing must. “Get to know your shadow,” the poet was once told. Now that shadow, torn up and scattered, permeates the book with “a girl’s interior logic shaped/like the balsa-wood spine of a kite.”  

--Maryfrances Wagner, author of The Immigrants’ New Camera: A Family Collection