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Momentum
Those moments in childhood that shape who we will become, and all that will come to define our lives, dominate the poems that Catherine Doty has collected in her debut volume. With humor, affection and a sharp awareness of the larger truths that can be found even in the mundane, Doty explores the luminous, sometimes curious relics of memory.
- GenresPoetry
68 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2004
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About the author
Catherine Doty
4 books9 followersCatherine Doty was born and raised in New Jersey and continues to live and teach there today.
Cat worked as a cook, bartender and cartoonist as she attended Upsala College and later the University of Iowa where she received an MFA in poetry. Her poems have been widely published. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and is the recipient of the 2003 Marjorie J. Wilson Award.
An artist, her published work also includes Just Kidding, Cartoons For Grownups - a humorous look at childhood through the eyes of a poet. Recommended for anyone who is a child, or has been one at some earlier time in their life.
Cat worked as a cook, bartender and cartoonist as she attended Upsala College and later the University of Iowa where she received an MFA in poetry. Her poems have been widely published. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and is the recipient of the 2003 Marjorie J. Wilson Award.
An artist, her published work also includes Just Kidding, Cartoons For Grownups - a humorous look at childhood through the eyes of a poet. Recommended for anyone who is a child, or has been one at some earlier time in their life.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 26, 2011
(Cat Doty read as part of my Visiting Author's Series at the West Side YMCA on 11/2/2007. This is a version of my spoken introduction for her)
The poems in Cat Doty’s “Momentum” have the ability to communicate hard-earned satisfaction and solace without becoming saccharine, and to generate ache without ever becoming maudlin. She has the ability to connect everyday occurrences to something more singular, more vivid, how an old beater of a car tells the tale of a whole life, or a famous canal the hopes for a future.
The poems are artfully crafted visions of a whole, yet the reader can still relish perfect individual lines and phrases like “On Monday the whole first grade crayolas a farm” Cat uses sound by choosing a word like “wimpled,” or the artful alliteration of “soap slivers curl from the knife like the wake of a wave,” from “The Baby Book.”
There’s surprising absurd humor that comes out of these poems, whether it be thematic, like the icon-altering “Lassie Comes Home,” or in the startlingly unexpected vulgarity that closes out a poem like “Eggs” or the wonderful “Mrs. Vooren’s Calendar” which takes the reader out of reverie, and into the world of unlikely connections.
Cat Doty’s poems are equally able to convey grief and gratitude (the title of one magical piece), by never settling for the easy path of thinking one can ever exist without the other.
The poems in Cat Doty’s “Momentum” have the ability to communicate hard-earned satisfaction and solace without becoming saccharine, and to generate ache without ever becoming maudlin. She has the ability to connect everyday occurrences to something more singular, more vivid, how an old beater of a car tells the tale of a whole life, or a famous canal the hopes for a future.
The poems are artfully crafted visions of a whole, yet the reader can still relish perfect individual lines and phrases like “On Monday the whole first grade crayolas a farm” Cat uses sound by choosing a word like “wimpled,” or the artful alliteration of “soap slivers curl from the knife like the wake of a wave,” from “The Baby Book.”
There’s surprising absurd humor that comes out of these poems, whether it be thematic, like the icon-altering “Lassie Comes Home,” or in the startlingly unexpected vulgarity that closes out a poem like “Eggs” or the wonderful “Mrs. Vooren’s Calendar” which takes the reader out of reverie, and into the world of unlikely connections.
Cat Doty’s poems are equally able to convey grief and gratitude (the title of one magical piece), by never settling for the easy path of thinking one can ever exist without the other.
July 11, 2008
This is a great collection from a poet whose work is not famous enough. Poems from this collection have graced collections like Billy Collins' _180_ series. Catherine Doty has a marvelous handle on the humorous and the meaningful. Whether her poems explore the quirkiness of a neighbor woman obsessed with her son's bowel movements, or the outcome of peer pressure, Doty always finds the quiddities of the matter at hand, its oddity and empathy. And always, she expresses it in the highest quality language--both elegant and immediate.
January 29, 2014
I'm not sure how this book ended up in my collection, but I'm so glad it did! It reminds me a bit of Marie Howe's captivating collection, "What the Living Do." Though different in theme, both capture a childhood anchored in a particular era and cultural milieu As is often the case with good poetry, the idiosyncratic helps connect readers to the universal. For seasoned poetry lovers and the as yet uninitiated, this book will resonate.
July 25, 2009
What an exquisite book of poems! Momentum makes me want to live a more open-hearted life and write more thoughtful, honest poems.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews