Never a Note Forfeit

by Catherine Staples

Poetry. Hand-tied chapbook. Co-winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize, selected by Betsy Sholl:

“There is an elegance of rhythm, astute observation of the natural world, a grace of metaphor in which landscape is transformed into emotional geography. The speaker’s concerns are both real and directed away from the self into a relationship with an ‘other.’ The narrative is never overbearing, but rather allowed to emerge and recede through the series. While a loved one’s life is at stake, that emotional drama is played out in tension with the beauty and ephemeral nature of landscape and in such a manner that embrace and connection are the ultimate concerns.”

23 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 2011

About the author

Catherine Staples is the author of Vert (Mercer University Press, 2024), The Rattling Window (Ashland Poetry Press, 2013), and Never a Note Forfeit, winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011). Her poems and reviews have appeared in the Academy of American Poets, Kenyon Review, Poetry, The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and others. Honors include the Guy Owen prize, McGovern Poetry Prize, Walter Dakin Fellowship, and residencies at Tyrone Gutherie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland. She teaches in the Honors and English programs at Villanova University and serves on the board of the Thoreau Society.