Katherine Hastings
Encyclopedia
Katherine Hastings is an American Poet living in Northern California. She has had poems published in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Comstock Review, Roque Dalton Redux (Cedar Hill Press), Rattle, Calyx, California Quarterly, Diner, Birmingham Arts Journal, Potpourri, New College Review and Parthenon West Review as well as several books, listed below.
She earned her MFA in Writing from Vermont College and serves as a contributing editor for Hunger Mountain: A Journal of Arts and Letters. Hastings grew up in San Francisco and currently lives in Sonoma County, California, where she founded and hosts the WordTemple Poetry Series, bringing well-established poets together with poets who have not yet published a book of poems. Poets who have read or are scheduled to read in the series include Jane Hirshfield
, David St. John, David Meltzer, Diane DiPrima, August Kleinzahler, Ilya Kaminsky, Al Young
, Michael McClure
, Robert Hass
, Brenda Hillman, Kay Ryan and many others. Hastings hosts a radio program, also called WordTemple, on Santa Rosa KRCB 91 FM, an NPR affiliate.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti writes of her book Sidhe, "I have read and reread your SIDHE. Lovely...It's your veiled history." Poet and critic Jack Foley (poet)
says "Katherine Hastings' SIDHE is an illuminating and fanciful exploration of sexual and ethnic identity. It is also great fun. The poem's primary strength is its marvelous openness as ancestral Irish voices mingle suddenly with the voices of the street or with voices from the past. SIDHE is not a homily on how to live a life, but it is a brilliant enactment of how a life may be conceived. The poem posits a ritual of problematical growth in a San Francisco which now exists primarily in Katherine Hastings' imagination. The "Dark mother" who haunts the poem is simultaneously Ireland and the massive feminine figure (what Jung would have called an archetype) which constantly nudges this poet into the most varied of expressions. Call her Hastings' angel and—through the medium of this rich, gorgeous tapestry of a poem—our own."
Finishing Lines Press * http://www.finishinglinepress.com
Ahadada Press * http://www.ahadadapress.com
She earned her MFA in Writing from Vermont College and serves as a contributing editor for Hunger Mountain: A Journal of Arts and Letters. Hastings grew up in San Francisco and currently lives in Sonoma County, California, where she founded and hosts the WordTemple Poetry Series, bringing well-established poets together with poets who have not yet published a book of poems. Poets who have read or are scheduled to read in the series include Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield is an American poet.-Biography:Jane Hirshfield was born in New York City and received her bachelor's degree from Princeton University in the school's first graduating class to include women. She later studied at the San Francisco Zen Center, including three years of monastic...
, David St. John, David Meltzer, Diane DiPrima, August Kleinzahler, Ilya Kaminsky, Al Young
Al Young
Al Young is an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. On May 15, 2005 he was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In appointing Young as Poet Laureate, the Governor praised him: "He is an educator and a man with a passion for the Arts...
, Michael McClure
Michael McClure
Michael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...
, Robert Hass
Robert Hass
Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...
, Brenda Hillman, Kay Ryan and many others. Hastings hosts a radio program, also called WordTemple, on Santa Rosa KRCB 91 FM, an NPR affiliate.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti writes of her book Sidhe, "I have read and reread your SIDHE. Lovely...It's your veiled history." Poet and critic Jack Foley (poet)
Jack Foley (poet)
Jack Foley is an American poet living in Oakland, California.-Biography:Jack Foley is a widely-published San Francisco poet and critic. Born in Neptune, New Jersey , raised in Port Chester, New York, and educated at Cornell University, Foley moved to California in 1963 to attend U. C. Berkeley...
says "Katherine Hastings' SIDHE is an illuminating and fanciful exploration of sexual and ethnic identity. It is also great fun. The poem's primary strength is its marvelous openness as ancestral Irish voices mingle suddenly with the voices of the street or with voices from the past. SIDHE is not a homily on how to live a life, but it is a brilliant enactment of how a life may be conceived. The poem posits a ritual of problematical growth in a San Francisco which now exists primarily in Katherine Hastings' imagination. The "Dark mother" who haunts the poem is simultaneously Ireland and the massive feminine figure (what Jung would have called an archetype) which constantly nudges this poet into the most varied of expressions. Call her Hastings' angel and—through the medium of this rich, gorgeous tapestry of a poem—our own."
Published works
- Fog and Light (Ahadada Reader 3, Ahadada Books 2011)
- Updraft (Finishing Line Press, 2010)
- Wolf Spider (dPress, 2005)
- Sidhe (dPress, 2006)
- Lonidier Rampant (The Small Change Series, WordTemple Press, 2007)
- Bird. Song. Knife. Heart. (The Small Change Series, WordTemple Press, 2008)
External links
- official site of WordTemple Poetry Series
- official site for KRCB FM
- Parthenon West Review > Summer 2004 > Any Wound by Katherine Hastings
Finishing Lines Press * http://www.finishinglinepress.com
Ahadada Press * http://www.ahadadapress.com