The Girls of Peculiar

by Catherine Pierce

In Catherine Pierce's most peculiar second collection, we enter a world of longing and destruction, of death and rebirth, and of wonderfully odd girls—girls who read too much, who drink too much or not enough, who craft necklaces from earwigs and wring nostalgia from Spiro Agnew. These are poems of questions and restlessness, but also of answers of a sort. As Beth Ann Fennelly writes, "[t]he 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."

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2012

About the author

Catherine Pierce served as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2021-2025 and is the author of four books of poems: Danger Days (2020), The Tornado Is the World (2016), The Girls of Peculiar (2012), and Famous Last Words (2008), all from Saturnalia Books. Each of her most recent three books won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prize; Famous Last Words won the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Two new books are forthcoming in 2026: a memoir, Foxes for Everybody, from Northwestern University Press, and a poetry collection, Dear Beast, from Saturnalia.

Pierce’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, New England Review, FIELD, Pleiades, Gettysburg Review, and the 2019 and 2021 Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Ecotone, The Rumpus, The Millions, Cincinnati Review, and River Teeth. In 2019, she was named a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, and in 2022 she was selected as an Academy of American Poets’ Laureate Fellow.

From 2007-2024, Pierce was professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State. She recently moved with her family back to her home state of Delaware, where she runs Studio & Craft, a poetry community, and continues to write, teach, and spend as much time outside as possible.

Reviews

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

★ 4 / 5 ★

As someone who doesn’t read much poetry because I usually don’t understand it (and frankly, don’t enjoy reading it), these poems were magnificent! Really. Catherine Pierce has a gift. These were lovely and magical poems. My only complaint is that some were better obviously than others—but that’s to be expected, I think, with poetry.

Regardless, I highly recommend.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

If possible, I'd give this collection 10 stars. Catherine Pierce's previous collection, Famous Last Words, was impressive, but she outdoes herself here with such a vibrant degree of startling imagery it causes the reader to revisit her poems several times. Not a weak one in the bunch here, folks. I admire this poet's tenacity and her feminist perspective. And yeah, her poems are so good, I have to admit, I'm a bit green with envy. On my list of "Poetry Books I Would Take to a Deserted Island".

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world created by Catherine Pierce in "The Girls of Peculiar" is well worth spending some time in. In this world, no girl is common; every girl is unique and mystical.

[Amy Pence · Rating 5 out of 5]

forthcoming in Cerise Press...
http://www.cerisepress.com/04/12/the-...

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed how I wrote poetry. Five out of five stars to the girls.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, I admit that Dr. Pierce is a professor of mine, but I promise I am not just trying to get brownie points out of my 5-star rating. This is really a fantastic book. It is witty, fun, and easy to read, as well as being very thought provoking and intuitive. I have loaned this book to many "non-poetry readers," and I have never got bad feedback.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You want to go back to the boardwalk
amusements of your youth and ride,
again, the Gravitron, that hulking
spaceship that spun like a centrifuge.
That's the best you can do
for now. It's your life.
It is spinning, and you are in it."

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a globe welling up inside of me.
Mountain ranges ridging my skin,
oceans filling my mouth. If I could stay still
long enough, I could become my own world.

From "Because I'll Never Swim in Every Ocean"

[Richard Hedrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virginia Wolfe said (in advising one about how to read a book), "The impact of poetry is so hard and direct that for the moment there is no other sensation except that of the poem itself." Seems she was thinking of this book and these poems. Utterly amazing.

[Joe Paris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catherine Pierce is one of my favorite poets. I love her style and vision.

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Special thanks to the marvelous poet & teacher Katherine Riegel for introducing me to Catherine Pierce's poetry and this book.

[Steph Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beauty of girlhood

[Abigail Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, rich, and a poignant reflection on being girl but not girly.

[Jenna King · Rating 4 out of 5]

So fun, so fresh

I love talking about being a woman and storytelling and who we are and were

[Jacqueline Knirnschild · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ugh, such a beautiful poetry collection. Sparkling, enchanting, mesmerizing. Catherine Pierce flawlessly takes you back to the summers of girlhood, the peculiar worlds inhabiting our imaginations and the inextinguishable longing that haunts us all.