Catherine Black

Catherine Black reads from her poetry collection, Lessons of Chaos and Disaster

Published by: Guernica

Time of Reading: 4:56

Catherine Black is a Toronto-born writer and graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s M.F.A. writing program. Her poetry has appeared in several Canadian and American literary journals including The Fiddlehead, The Harpweaver, Scrivener Creative Review, Rhino and Preling. Her first book of prose poetry, Lessons of Chaos and Disaster, was published as part of Guernica Editions’ “First Poet Series” and her second book is forthcoming with Guernica Editions in 2010. Catherine has lived variously in the United States, Mexico, and France, and despite bouts of wanderlust she presently resides in Toronto where she teaches writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

“Her work in this debut collection is intense, imagistic and often inward looking. Black vividly evokes the sensation of being "trapped / alive in skin," as she puts it. [...] Black tends to write in direct, declarative sentences, but she achieves an incantatory urgency through repetition and a build-up of expressive images.”
—Barbara Carey, Toronto Star

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