Catie Rosemurgy
Managing Editor Lisa Ampleman: This hybrid, elliptical piece draws from the language of fairy tales to illuminate the experience of adolescence (perhaps; in part), as one character is “a little girl on some days and a young woman on others.” With references to violence and the body—as well as an allusion to the environment in the title—Rosemurgy pulls together a wide variety of concerns to create a speaker who has persevered and endured, much like those forests full of 150-year-old trees.
To hear Catie read her piece, click below:
Old-Growth Forest
I remember that transitional period when you were a little girl on some days and a young woman on others. I would lie awake having tied myself to the bed with the lines from my face. When you finally got home, you were hungry for the birds you’d killed and would untie me quickly so I could cook them. Oh, girl, remember how I would lay your fiery dress out at the end of the bed for you to wear? I will speak to you always in this old, bloody code.
Catie Rosemurgy is the author of two books of poems, My Favorite Apocalypse (2001) and The Stranger Manual (2009), both from Graywolf Press. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Pew Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at The College of New Jersey.
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