RIDGELY, MD – In Larvae of the Nearest Stars, her latest collection of poems, Catherine W. Carter offers deeply serious verse that packs profound emotional and spiritual power while encouraging her readers to laugh out loud. Carter will give a reading on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 3 p.m. at Adkins Arboretum, Ridgely. The public is invited to attend.
Carter grew up in Caroline County, the daughter of a master gardener and a biologist, and her quirky, accessible works reflect those influences. The poems in Larvae of the Nearest Stars bridge and question binaries: human and nonhuman, science and magic, lyric and narrative, river trash and galaxies. Subjects range from dowsers and liver spots to the mysteries of two-seater outhouses. The collection begins and ends by confronting the necessity—and the promise—to bear witness to the world as it is, addressing how we can manage to love the world in the face of everything that makes doing so a challenge. The poems in this engaging and meditative collection are sometimes dark, often funny, but always surprising.
A professor of English at Western Carolina University, Carter is the author of several poetry collections, including The Swamp Monster at Home, The Memory of Gills and Marks of the Witch. Her poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2009, Orion, Poetry magazine, Ecotone and Ploughshares, among others. Her work has won the North Carolina Literary Review’s James Applewhite Prize, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Society’s Roanoke-Chowan Award, the North Carolina Poetry Society’s poet laureate’s prize and many other awards.
The reading will be followed by discussion and light refreshments. It is free, but advance registration is appreciated at adkinsarboretum.org or by calling 410-634-2847, ext. 0.
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~ Adkins Arboretum is a 400-acre native garden and preserve at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County. Open year round, the Arboretum is the region’s resource for native plants and education programs about nature, ecology and wildlife conservation gardening. For more information, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0.