Catherine Pierce is the author of two books of poetry, The Girls of Peculiar (Saturnalia 2012) and Famous Last Words (Saturnalia 2008), as well as of a chapbook, Animals of Habit (Kent State 2004). Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, Slate, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and FIELD. Originally from Delaware, she now lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where she teaches and co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.

Other poems by Catherine Pierce in Verse Daily:
September 8, 2008:   "The Guidance Counselor to the Girl" "The test suggests an aptitude for solitary work..."
June 24, 2008:   "'This is Funny'" "Not the whiskey, though that, too..."
July 10, 2004:  "Nor Hell a Fury" "I am the step that creaks...."

Books by Catherine Pierce:

Other poems on the web by Catherine Pierce:
"Narrative Theory"
Two poems
Two poems
"Last Meal"
"Poem: Precautions"
"Dear Day,"
"Love Poem To America"
Four poems
"This Is Not an Elegy"
"Poem from the Girls We Were"
"Instinct"
Two poems
"Reading Faulkner at 17, You Foresee Your Reckoning"
"I Go Back to Ohio"

Catherine Pierce's Website.

Catherine Pierce on Twitter.

About The Girls of Peculiar:

"Who is this strong, compelling, peculiar voice that we follow so gladly into realms of the unknown? This beautifully constructed book offers all the pleasures of travel, but the places we travel to here are ones only Catherine Pierce could guide us to, for we live alternate lives, romp with the protagonists of childhood books, traipse through the world of nightmares where for once the creatures are sleeping so we can lie down with the lion. The big themes here—self-identity, desire, escape—are illuminated with clarity, scored musically, and enlivened with wit. The Girls of Peculiar is a fabulous book."
—Beth Ann Fennelly

"In Catherine Pierce's poetry world, the girls are 'bird cries.' I think these poems are bird cries, lovely and sad. Pierce knows that we lovely and sad humans are built of want and the memory of want. Each of us is a 'river burst into flame.' Read these poems and you will remember how to burn."
—Sherman Alexie