The Woman with a Cat on Her Shoulder: and Other Riffs

by Richard Katrovas

Overview

A  poetic meditation on the terror of extinction.

The Woman with a Cat on Her Shoulder is a gathering of “punk formalist” lyrics that collectively are a meditation not on mortality so much as on the terror of extinction, how that terror is the reservoir of love. Katrovas declaims from the margins of faith, the cliff edge of doubt, seeking to measure the conductivity of private troubles to public issues. Katrovas’ “riffs” are verse essays jotted in the antechambers of nightmares and erotic dreams.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887486838
Publisher:	Carnegie-Mellon University Press
Publication date:	11/22/2022
Series:	Carnegie Mellon University Press Poetry Series
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Richard Katrovas is the author of seventeen books of prose and verse. He taught for twenty years at the University of New Orleans, and since 2003 at Western Michigan University.

Table of Contents

The Angel Murray on Assignment 9

The Angel Murray Speaks of Heaven 9

The Angel Murray Speaks, Elliptically (As Is the Way of Angels), of Broken Hearts from His Former Perspective as an Accountant: 10

The Angel Murray Speaks of Dreams 12

The Angel Murray Speaks of Parenting 13

"That's cosmic," 15

The Woman with a Cat on Her Shoulder 17

Grackles 19

"Gitty Up" 21

The Lonely Road 22

A Riff on Abstraction 24

A Riff on Past Lives 25

A Riff on Romantic Love 26

A Riff on Unloving 27

A Riff on Serial Monogamy 28

A Riff on Artificial Intelligence 29

A Riff on Mortality 30

A Riff on Decency 32

A Riff on Soul 34

A Riff on Opera 36

A Riff on Academic Freedom 38

A Riff on Teachers 40

A Riff on Faith 41

A Riff on Identity Politics and MLK 42

A Riff on Ghosts 43

A Riff on Publishing Poems 46

The Essence of Woe 48

A Riff on The 50

Kali in a Time of Plague 53

Ars Poetica 55

For Ella on Her 16th 56

For Rodger Kamenetz on His 70th 58

Doggerel for Alena, Matriarch of Solstice 59

The Other Side 60

Marie 62

The Ditch 64

Daddyland 66

The Word Made Mud: Interview with the Golem … 74

Editorial Reviews

Richard Katrovas is masterful, part Mark Twain, part Henry Miller. He is ferocious, tender, original.” 

Gerald Stern

Wit, verve, energy, and common intelligence mark the poems . . . as truly distinctive. But what makes them necessary is the heartbeat in the shadows, the steam of daily things. This poet, as they say in the South, is doing business—and it is a rare, sometimes raw pleasure to watch him.” 

Dave Smith

Suppose that, like the ancient Greeks, we have a religious drama, and it turns out to be soap opera. Suppose that a skillful and cheeky poet saw in this circumstance not a falling away from a Golden Age but an opportunity to write, in both high style and a wicked parody of high style, about the emotional life of the tribe. You’d have this book.” 

William Matthews