Catherine Hamrick

Fear Gags a Poet’s Voice

W. D. Snodgrass collected the Pulitzer Prize for his first book of poems, Heart’s Needle, in 1960. However, with early glory came career pressure, ego issues, loss of relationships, and writer’s block. Nonetheless, he persisted, even when his art fell out of fashion. An interview with the Paris Review offers an intriguing […]

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Artist + Author = Grand Literary Design

Winter-Wish--Design-The-Decorated-Tree-by-Darryl-Moland-blue-and-silver-tabletop-tree

Darryl Moland, a 21st-century Renaissance man, came up with a stunning coffee-table book that celebrates decorative art year-round. This work beautifully migrates from social media to three-dimensional magic. If you want to create your own art book, follow this lesson from a Time Inc. (Southern Living and Cooking Light) print […]

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

back 2 basics: 7 #twittertips

Am I flattered when someone with 21,000 Twitter fans follows me? Not necessarily. Scrolling a few seconds through the posts tells me whether that persons sings a one-note song: “Me-me-me-me-me-e-e, please RT me-e-e! Me-me-me-me–it’s all about me-e-e-e!” My answer? “Forget you-ou-ou!” However, anyone who follows these Twitter basics grabs my […]

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Fall Leavings (poem)

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Canada comes, Cooling the Blue Ridge leaf by leaf, Bronze, copper, and scarlet flame While the morning moon burns white in blue. Umber splotches rosy dogwood, And birds snatch at candy-berry clusters. My face upturns to catch the sun’s glow Through lidded eyes. The wind stirs twigs and branches, Brushing […]

Estimated reading time: 59 seconds

My Other Blog: Random Storyteller

The Shadow of My Father’s Beard

It’s the small things, After a person is gone, That keep him alive, For a time, The things unnoticed Until they rise Out of memory’s grave. My father’s beard, Always a shadow, Even at 5 a.m., Briefly bristled my cheek, While my mother Lilted, “Rise and shine,” In the dark Of day number four […]

My Father on D-Day: Why Do You Ask This?

They made movies of our memories,

Of what they thought they were:

German mortar and exploding artillery,

The strewn wreckage

Of flipped, ripped jeeps,

Of wire,

Of bodies, whole, some with faces yet,

Of twitching pieces, arms here and legs flung there,

Of middle parts, spilling guts, oozing.

What was I thinking?

The sea foams, so does blood.

Then my hands did the thinking, and doing, on semi-automatic,

What the doctor ordered:

Stanch bleeding,

Apply dressings,

Sprinkle sulfa powder,

The lone wound antiseptic.

And dwindle the morphine—

On who has the best chance?

The hands became the machine

That patched the broken living and passed them to other hands

That stretchered them up the ramp.

To My Mother: Origami Storm

Although I previously published a version of this poem, I revised it with a certain precision—in keeping with my mom’s handiwork. A science major turned homemaker, she lived joyfully and creatively. I opened cereal boxes upside down And absently stuck them on a fridge shelf, Defying the precision strokes of my mom, The domestic engineer […]