Shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award — League of Canadian Poets

Shortlisted for the Canadian Authors Association Award for PoetryIn her fifth collection of poetry, Catherine Graham breaks into rich, new territory. Long recognized for the easy grace and strange beauty of her poems about grief and remembrance, in Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects, she turns her thoughts toward poems of tribute and exaltation. Paying homage to the work of two inspiring poets?P. K. Page, whose long life and celebrated career have made her a legend in her native Canada, and Dorothy Molloy, an Irish poet whose life was tragically cut short just as readers were discovering the true scope of her talents?Graham has crafted an ocean-spanning book of deep feeling, good humour and hard-won solace.

Catherine Graham is a poet, novelist and creative writing instructor. She is the author of six acclaimed poetry collections, including The Celery Forest, a CBC Best Book of the Year and finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Poetry Award and her debut novel, Quarry, was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Contemporary Fiction and Fred Kerner Book Award and won the Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” Book Award and an Independent Publisher Book Awards’ gold medal for Fiction. She holds an MA in creative writing from Lancaster University (UK). Her poems have been translated into Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Bangla, Chinese and Spanish and have appeared in The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Glasgow Review of Books, Exile Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Poetry Daily, Poetry Ireland, Gutter Magazine and have been broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, anthologized in The White Page / An Bhileag Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol IV & V. A finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, she has won the Arc Award of Awesomeness and her poems have been nominated for the 2020 National Magazine Award by Exile Magazine. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award. A previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW, she leads their monthly book club and is also an interviewer for By the Lake Book Club.

Catherine Graham's profile page

"This is no simple book of poetry. It is sensual and dark, a feast for the senses. Her grace with language is sublime." - Canadian Poetries

"The gothic, textured, ornately spare cover design is gorgeous and the experimental entrances into Dorothy Molloy's poems are fascinating. I adore form and fiddlings with it and Graham shows what can happen when one reads a deceased poet's work so deeply that their spirit in a sense infiltrates, shaping not only the content, but more importantly, the structure of the work." - The Relentless Adventures of OCD Crow

"She has the technical mastery to make the glosas disappear - what I mean is that the technique vanishes and we are left with strong, vibrant poems that aren't bridled by technique. There is humour, wit, sensual experience, fantasy and grace in these poems. Hard to ask for more than that. It is also a delight to read, to recommend." - Michael Dennis Poet