With her characteristic fearlessness Catherine Owen examines what drives her to write and the influences that shape her writing. From her childhood memories in suburban Vancouver to her willingness to risk all for a glimpse of her muse, the essays in Catalysts allow readers unparalleled insight into Owen’s creative life. A brilliantly honest collection, these essays should be read by every aspiring author.
Reviews
Owen moves from strong to weak and back (Philip K. Thompson, Chroncile Herald, 26/08/2012)
“Best of all, Owen describes the essential tension between performance or spoken word poetry, and poems written for the printed page. Her advice to poets and performers in these distinct, but related genres, is the best I’ve ever heard.”
Review (Mark Sampson, Free Range Reading, 22/07/2012)
"Catalysts is a testament to a life immersed in poetic forms, a searching for truth through the prismatic (and often cruel) facets of circumstance and self."
Review (Anne Burke, Feminist Caucus, 09/07/2012)
"This is an extraordinary collection of contemplations, revelations, and confabulations from an accomplished poet."
Interviews
"I am fine with being marginal": Poet and essayist Catherine Owen (Steven W. Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag, 10/01/2013)
Catherine Owen, Equinox and Solstice (Canadian Poets Petting Cats, 10/07/2012)
"I think Catalysts is more a companion to my poetry books in the end, never seeking to reductively explicate them but instead engaging in an elaboration of their quirks and meanderings and sinkholes. A decade plus of ruminations and asides on the art of the foolish word-musician."
Other Titles by Catherine Owen
Seeing Lessons (2010)
Shall: ghazals (2006)
Wrecks of Eden (2001)
Downloads
Catalysts: Confrontations with the muse
Read the introduction and first two essays from Catalysts: Confrontations with the muse.
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