12/12/09

I was first published in 1975, and my long career in business writing includes technical, marketing and fundraising, as well as literary pieces. I can provide samples of writing upon request. Email me at cathy[at]cathymcguire[dot]com.

I have been focusing my literary efforts on poetry for the past two years, and am pleased to have had 43 acceptances this year! I was  a featured poet at the Springfield Public Library 225, Fifth St. Springfield, on April 28, 2009. I am honored to be a featured reader at the William Stafford birthday celebration in Corvallis on Jan 31, 2010 (Benton Country library), and will be teaching a class "Ready,Set, Submit!" with my friend Laura LeHew at the Fooling With Words all-day event at LBCC on April 3, 2010. Last summer, I was an included poet at the Perceptions launch party in Troutdale, and the Denali and Thresholds launch parties in Eugene.

I currently have a chapbook and a full-length manuscript of poetry going the rounds of contest and publishing house.

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

Online: New Verse News, Smoking Poet; FutureCycle;  melusine, The Road Not Taken, Adagio Verse Quarterly; Rhythm;  MReview

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

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

My Chapbook: Joy Holding Stillness
 

(All poetry copyrighted 2009 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?

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