Books

The Daughter's Almanac, Winner of the 2014 Backwaters Prize 

About the Book

"With unflinching stanzas threaded through with grief's relentless lyric, THE DAUGHTER'S ALMANAC is a masterwork, a deftly crafted illustration of the myriad ways beauty collides with pain. Succinct and utterly memorable, these poems take hold of the heart and tug it toward an insistent light. We are washed alive in that light. We are changed by it."
—Patricia Smith, 2014 Backwaters Prize Judge

https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/the-backwaters-press/9781935218388/

Thirty Days: The Best of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project’s First Year

edited by Marie Gauthier Tupelo Press, 2015. Thirty Days The Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, begun as a creative approach to fundraising, has burgeoned into a community. Each month, volunteer poets run the equivalent of a "poetry marathon," writing 30 poems in 30 days, rough drafts that are posted daily online, the poets sponsored and encouraged every step of the way. This anthology comprises the best of those drafts, now revised, from the 30/30 Project's first year. Katharine Whitcomb participated as a 30/30 “marathon poet” in December 2014; her poems are included in this volume. Available on Amazon.

Fire on Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry

edited by Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy Two Sylvias Press, 2014. Fire on Her Tongue Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry is the first electronic collection (now in a print version) of poems by women writing today. Poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review and Co-Founders of Two Sylvias Press, have collaborated on this ground-breaking literary project. Featuring over 70 of the most extraordinary poets from a variety of backgrounds and whose ages span from thirteen to ninety-one, Fire On Her Tongue showcases superbly crafted poems exploring the contemporary woman’s experience. Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry includes poems by Katharine Whitcomb, Kim Addonizio, Madeline DeFrees, Hirshfield, Dorianne Laux, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Alicia Ostriker, Patricia Smith, A.E. Stallings, Rachel Zucker, and many other accomplished poets. Available on Amazon.

All of Us: Sweet: The First Five Years

edited by Katherine Reigel Sweet Publications, 2014. Sweet: A Literary Confection Ok, but what’s American poetry doing now? This anthology answers: it’s partying. In these pages, award-winning poets and those whose books we are still looking forward to mingle, chat, drink, dance, and get down to the business of making meaning with words. All of Us anthologizes poems from Katherine Reigel’s online journal of poetry and creative nonfiction, Sweet: A Literary Confection, including poems by Katharine Whitcomb, Tim Seibles, Kelle Groom, Luisa A. Igloria, Oliver de la Paz, and many others. Available on Amazon.

The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders

edited by Jared Hawkley, Susan Rich, and Brian Turner 2013 McSweeney's Strangest of Theatres The Strangest of Theatres explores how poets traveling outside our borders can serve as envoys to the wider world and revitalize American poetry in the process. The edited collection includes original and reprinted essays by contemporary poets who address questions of estrangement, identity, and home while traveling abroad. In addition to Katharine Whitcomb, authors include Kazim Ali, Elizabeth Bishop, Naomi Shihab Nye, Nick Flynn, Yusef Komunyakaa, Claudia Rankine, and others.

The Art Courage Program

with Brian Goeltzenleuchter Jaded Ibis Press, 2014. Art Courage Program The Art Courage Program is a hybrid book combining two literary genres: self-help and cultural criticism. This book offers readers the tools needed to overcome anxieties associated with all aspects of art. The step-by-step program encourages readers to move beyond negative art reactions, learn from and be healed by their experiences, and find acceptance and even appreciation of art.Available on Amazon

Saints of South Dakota and Other Poems

by Katharine Whitcomb 2000 Bluestem Award Saints of South Dakota In this breathtaking debut collection, Katharine Whitcomb’s Saints of South Dakota wrests from the clatter of the American road a new language that is both prayerful and muscular, tender and utterly necessary. In poems examining the perils of difficult love, Whitcomb brings readers to an understanding of inevitable suffering, and finds a hard-won transcendence in the details of the lived life. These poems—elegant in form, and tonally scrupulous—show us that ecstatic revelation is real, poignant, and right before our eyes. “
The poems in this collection are full of wondrous things: Chinatown funerals, customized Cadillacs, men who dive through glass with cats in their arms to escape from burning buildings. Artfully wrong, yet hewing in subject matter to the heartware and gutware that really matter to us, these poems gripped and held me and kept me returning to their hold.

— Lucia Perillo, 2000 Final Judge

More information can be found at the Bluestem Press website.

Chapbooks

Lamp of Letters

by Katharine Whitcomb Floating Bridge Press Lamp of Letters I'm interested in intensity and consistency of voice in my poems. I have always been very engaged in the integrity of the line and the power of allowing a poem to find its true form—whether it be a prose poem or an open field composition or free verse couplets. I want the "I" in the poems to transcend confessional solipsism and serve instead as a metaphoric guide and mirror to readers. Robert Duncan is one of my aesthetic mentors, as is Anne Carson. I hope my voice is half as intelligent and beguiling as their voices seem to me. My themes explore what it means to be human, the "idea" of god, the mystery of death and nature in all its complexity. There is humor in those big ideas and sadness too. And always a celebration of beauty.

Hosannas

by Katharine Whitcomb Parallel Press Poetry Chapbooks Hosannas Hosannas is a collection of nine poems by the award-winning poet Katharine Whitcomb. The word hosanna traditionally refers to a shout of praise or an appeal for deliverance, and her poems fit both meanings. Whitcomb's poetry is informed by her experience of driving through the Midwestern landscape for ten years as a traveling sales rep, and her resulting reverence for the people and the history of that region. The work is a weaving, narrative journey that asks questions and seeks answers by comparison and through hope.