MAPPING THE EMPTY LOT by Catherine Young is from her poetry collection Geosmin. The narrator in this poem visits a childhood house after many years and finds it a gap in the city block where it had stood.

STONE CIRCLE by Catherine Young from her poetry collection Geosmin. From the perspective of geologic time, stone is always in motion. Glass is a slow liquid that pools at the bottoms of cathedral windows. Stone Circle was inspired by a lively and colorful painting of...

Catherine reads MINUS FORTY from her poetry collection Geosmin. In the deep cold weather there is a garden of growing things made of ice.

Catherine reads 2 poems of season: CHICKADEES by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, from her collection Carrying Water to the Field and SYLVAN (L’HOMME VERT) from poet, Donna Carnes, portraying each of the four seasons through the eyes of a tree in the imagist...

A PARALLELOGRAM by Catherine Young is from her poetry collection Geosmin. A PARALLELOGRAM is based on the photo “Met” of a many-storied, many-paned atrium with reflections and echoes of parallelograms through which could be seen snow-covered trees. The poem is an...

LOST AT SEA and AT A LOSS by Catherine Young are from her poetry collection Geosmin. LOST AT SEA considers how coal has given us light, heat, electricity, clothing, medicines—but it is fossil fuel, sunshine stored in carbon, and it has been the major contributor to...

IN DARK TIMES WE GATHER LIGHT by Catherine Young is from her poetry collection Geosmin. The poem is a hybrid prose poem about bees and nuns, darkness and light, and the ceremonial procession of St. Lucia Day, December 13th as well as spring’s promise of renewal.

LIGHTING THE MENORAH by Catherine Young was published in Cricket Magazine. As the sun sets across the world, people light up the darkness. In each hour, the menorah candles are lit, prayers are sung, and candlelight steadily progresses in homes across the planet as...

IN THE ANTIQUE MALL and ART GOES UNBIDDEN by Catherine Young from her poetry collection Geosmin. Perhaps you’ve have the experience of walking into an antique store to find objects and tools that you’ve grown up with are now antiques. That’s where IN THE ANTIQUE MALL...

The essay “Smoke” by Catherine Young is reaction to and experience of the wildfire ash that began to cover our Midwestern skies in the fall of 2020 against the background of having grown up in the smoke of the largest coal mining valley in the world.