Poetry

Catherine Graham's poetry has appeared in literary journals in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland and in several anthologies.  Some of her work has also been translated into Chinese.

Publications

To learn more about each collection, please click on the book covers below.

Winterkill

Insomniac Press, 2010

"Catherine Graham's new collection Winterkill completes the trilogy that includes her critically acclaimed previous books Pupa (2003) and The Red Element (2008). Her poems always navigate the difficult paths between grief and memory, between intimacy and strangeness, with a disarming, surefooted grace. These are her most powerful, most affirming works to date."
  — Paul Vermeersch, poetry editor for Insomniac Press

 "From unicorns to frogs and turtles to moths, Graham utilizes images from fantasy and nature, working these poems to mine a quarry of loss: "We look for the dead in the living." And Graham writes that loss into startling poems."
  — The Telegraph-Journal

"...Graham invests the colours red and green with layers of meaning to the point that it verges on self-induced synesthesia. But the repetition of this and other motifs (wings, water) is incantatory — and effective."
  — Winnipeg Free Press

"... the gifts they offer are expansive and reward close attention....that’s the beauty of this and so many other poems in Winterkill: you’re given lots of space to fill in the blanks on your own...Winterkill is a warm, generous and welcoming collection of poems."
  — Mark Sampson, Free Range Reading

"Like the painting on the cover of her newest book of poetry, Winterkill, Catherine Graham's poems are at once delicate and terrifying. In "Turtles," for instance, she renders the brutal nature of children so beautifully in just two lines: "I let them stew in their piss./I wanted something alive." My favourite poetry is the narrative kind, and Catherine tells such incredibly layered stories with so few words that I'm constantly blinking in amazement."
  — Jessica Westhead, The New Quarterly, Who’s Reading What

"As the last of Graham’s Quarry Trilogy, Winterkill will surely leave on the reader’s fingertips a residue of sleek creek mud, of purifying snowdrifts, and the bittersweet cadence of self and loss."
  — The Toronto Quarterly

"Another highly accessible collection of poetry from one of Toronto’s brightest poetry minds."
  — Open Book: Toronto

"Desire, menace and loss thrum through this collection of deceptively restrained, brief poems that, in the main, mourn the early deaths of the poet’s parents. Imagery of mysterious creatures (a misunderstood troll, a unicorn wearied by expectations, the trickster rabbit of a breakfast cereal), the natural world of vivid colours and decay, and a dream-like abandoned quarry indirectly expresses both the poignancy of grief and a wild, just-below-the-surface longing... these are works of supple strength that have emerged from the storm to linger in the mind."
  — Advent Book Blog, Kateri Lanthier

Order Winterkill

The Red Element

Insomniac Press, 2008

"...Catherine Graham is a poet of the intimate voice, the treasured, internalised experience..."
  — Parameter Magazine (UK)

"In her stunning new volume of poems, The Red Element, Catherine Graham distills the whirling ambiguities of memories into gorgeous, mysterious single images, making the short poem triumph again on the Canadian literary landscape. With the dense, new energy of The Red Element, where all the poems form a bravura lyrical sequence, Graham proves herself as one of Canada's premier younger poets."
  — Molly Peacock

"These poems are fine works. Choose any set of lines: "By the end of mid-October…. / Off come the leaves. / They whip through the world as birds."
  — George Elliott Clarke, The Chronicle Herald

"...more goose bumps per page than any collection in recent memory. Sticking to the poetic doctrine less is more, this collection is a tour de force in minimalism. Her steady hand and firm voice are breathtaking. They are empowered images, graceful sparks."
  — Angela Hibbs, Broken Pencil

"These poems are sharp, imaginative, and never cutesy... Graham’s poetry is especially admirable in its combination of accessibility, urgency, and imagination, making The Red Element one of my favourite poetry collections of the year."
  — Hannah Stephenson, Gloss

"Having carved out her particular niche on the Canlit map with her last two offerings, The Watch and Pupa, The Red Element is another groundbreaking delight."
  — Kane X. Faucher, Scene Magazine

"...it is worthwhile to let The Red Element (Insomniac Press, 2008) suck you into its vividly morbid world."
  — Matrix

"The oneiric surrealism engendered there is highly effective; it harnesses narrative purpose and stanza order in tension to the seemingly random menace of the poems’ imagery."
  — Arc Poetry Magazine

Order The Red Element

Pupa

Insomniac Press, 2003

"The poems in Pupa, her first collection, are spiky little meditations so taut and tightly controlled they are almost claustrophobic...The poems' effect is all the more intense as a result.... This impressive collection should put her on the Canlit map."
  — The Toronto Star

 "An underrated poet; the super-compressed lyrics of this book make a most unusual music and are quite convincing treatments of grief."
  — Zachariah Wells

"The best advice that I can give on this book is to go read it, let Graham explain Graham to you."
  — Grey Borders

"...Graham is a young poet whose work should be closely attended to."
  — Arc Poetry Magazine

"...Graham's Pupa is a debut collection of graceful concision and surprising wisdom."
  — The Times-Colonist

"Graham has the haiku sensibility: not the Orientally measured form which, in English, can appeal only to the eye, but the talent for the evocative image succinctly expressed... Her best work is at once brief, yet resonant...the sophistication of their brevity, remind me of Roethke."
  — The Fiddlehead

Order Pupa

The Watch

Abbey Press, 1998

"...dives sensually into experience and enables the reader to follow. She writes what happens so that it happens again. It's an appealing collection, full of telling and specific detail."
  — Poetry Ireland Review 61

"Graham has much promise as a poet, and makes one eager to read a full collection of her work."
  — Nessa O'Mahoney, InCognito, Dublin