06/16/07

Here are a few samples of some of my creative works. I can provide samples of technical, marketing and fundraising writing upon request. Email me at cathy[at]cathymcguire.com.

Poetry has been part of my life since I can remember; in 4th grade I got in trouble for passing my poems to classmates for their amusement. I have published poems since I was about 20 (not counting the poem published by the Westfield Leader when I was in 7th grade), and my poems have appeared in many places (a partial list is below). I'm currently working on a chapbook of poems about my experiences working in the mental health and social services field, and I have a chapbook called "Joy Holding Stillness" about the Lake Quinault region of Washington.

A partial list of where I've been published (in no particular order):

Anthologies: Verseweavers; Portland Lights; Raising Our Voices, Poetry Against the War;  Out of Line

Magazines: Green Fuse; Fireweed; Crab Creek Review; Poetry NW; Windfall; California Quarterly; Folio; Tapjoe; Into the Teeth of the Wind; Mobius; Hazmat Review; Spondee (online); Marylhurst MReview (online); Bogg; Arnazella; Connecticut River Review; Cape Rock; Mid-America Poetry Review and Poetry in Motion (Portland buses and MAX trains)

Chapbook is available for $8.00 plus $2.00 shipping (media mail)

   

(All poetry copyrighted 2006 by Catherine McGuire. Do not reproduce without permission of the author.)

Lenten Rose

Frost-tipped, the mauve bells appear
before the green shoots form
into a wide, leafy, inverted bowl.
Bowing low to the bare dirt,
resigned to the bleak season
it heralds, still it feasts the eye
that has fasted on earth tones
so long. Hiding the sensuous
purple freckles, shielding
the thick, chartreuse poppy-pod
from careless view, it strikes
a somber pose befitting
the pre-Easter days. It blooms
at the threshold of Spring,
and will not see its fruition.

Unlikely adventurer, small
compact fountain of growth,
saboteur of the winter slumber,
“hellebore” sounds like drilling
the depths -- Hell Bore, do your
roots go down to Persephone’s realm,
making her a ladder to find
her way to the surface again?

Days of Dormancy

The winter sun lays gently
on the cold concrete, touches the glass
of the door, enters, hesitant, onto the rug
and the couch where I sit,
cold as any waiting bulb, torn
between an urge to push up, to break free,
and fear of winter’s cruelty and
the cold, cold ground that holds me.

Not-yet-spring, the days before Imbolc,
are red-tipped with hope, quiet and still as frozen
ponds, the would-be poised as far out
as it dares, trying to sense the time,
the welcoming moment.

What has sprung from the compost
of my heart lies still for now,
but its tip trembles with anticipation.
I will bloom.

Strangers

On this smooth sheet of paper, I see
she was abused -- her childhood
ravaged by a monstrous father
who still writes to her from jail.
I see she drinks too much,
has too many lovers; a child in the system.
This stranger before me is stripped naked,
casually, by a scheme that codes her woes
into numbers for insurance companies to use;
numbers the government tracks to glean
what they think is a picture of the whole.
The fools.

The “whole” sits before me: long, stringy hair,
eyes restless like birds, body caved inward
to protect what she knows is already wide open.
There is no “whole” but this -- a life so raw
that healing is an art, a magic if you will;
something slow and growing, like a bird
recovers from a broken limb. Not a series
of abrupt meetings between strangers. Not
a façade of healing stretched over
a sea of numbers, morass of codes.

Keeping Hold of the Thread

It is the merest link, strand of something
always present, a gift long ago
that I unroll at unlikely corners.

Labyrinthian hours and minutes
switch and veer, shape-shifting, as age
stalks me with the message of my passing.

Tucked in Mnemonic folds,
fragments float to the surface then sink
as mysteriously as they arrived.

How helpful are the objects I leave
behind, the marks of my passage:
dog-eared pages, earthen bowls?

The sun leaves little, content
to wander the hills and swales
of the day, its touch a phantom.

Yet still I crave assurance
and strain to hear the melody:
the echoes of my feet through the years.

SAMPLE ESSAY

Slow Down

Authorities continue to warn us of terrorist threats and encourage us to scrutinize our surroundings, including mail, more carefully. I am wondering if we could get some good out of all this bad. Perhaps this slow down isn’t a bad thing -- what might happen if we actually took the time to be aware not only of the mail that comes in, piece by piece, but the other small interactions that fill the day? What would your day feel like if you could cut your pace in half and actually pay attention to each of the small things you are doing? (And if you say, “It would be overwhelming”, how can you begin to cut down/cut out until it is less so?)
I can already hear those who’ll protest that they can’t slow down, because the rest of the world won’t and then they’ll be behind. That’s why this is such a good time to begin -- everyone can use the excuse of needing to be more aware of their surroundings and interactions --everyone can begin to slow down. Don’t you feel like you’ve started running down a steep hill and now can’t stop? Do you know anyone who doesn’t feel like Life has gotten entirely too “speeded up” in the last few years?

We’ve gotten so good at, and taken such pride in, our efficiency and speed that many of us haven’t noticed the price we’re paying for this: we’ve become more frantic, more tired, more isolated (lack of time to visit and chat), more irritable (input overload) and often more sick.

In the name of efficiency, we’ve speeded up our meals until they can be eaten with one hand, adapted to multi-tasking until we feel incompetent if we’re only doing two things at once, and reduced our communications with others to the barest minimum needed to get work done. (Raise hands all of those who work for a company that schedules lunchtime meetings. When was the last time you ate lunch with a co-worker just to chat? Remember coffee breaks? Or was that before your time?)

And yet it’s the moments when we’ve slowed down that we remember, those moments when we are totally present with the moment. I can remember summer afternoons under the trees as a child, and quiet moments with friends, and a recent trip to a lake -- but all those rushed-through moments at work have become one fuzzy blur. So - how much of your life to you want to remember as a fuzzy blur?
There’s more than enough research to point out the dangers of living at the speed that we’ve “achieved”: high blood pressure, neurological illnesses, and more accidents, divorces and broken relationships (to name a few). But each of us must check our own lives, and make our own decision as to whether the price we are paying is worth the benefit of moving through each day at double or triple speed. And if the answer is “no”, let’s each take a small step towards slowing by taking a full minute longer with each interaction, each activity today.

 

Here are some links that I like: