By Stone and Needle: Poems - Softcover

Carter, Catherine W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807185078 ISBN 13: 9780807185070

Publisher: Louisiana State University Press, 2025

Synopsis

Winner of the 2025 L. E. Phillabaum Poetry Award

Shimmering to the pulse of the unseen, By Stone and Needle circles like a compass needle around the figure of the witch. Catherine Carter concocts a book of secular spells and incantations for engaging with, and meditating upon, a world in which all things are connected, in which symbol slides into literal, spirituality into science, exact observation into lamentation and love.

The poems in By Stone and Needle spin connecting threads between night sweats, witch drownings, creation stories, pedicures, goddesses—and, especially, between miraculously interconnected ecosystems and the forces that threaten them. Speakers encompass personae including lactobacilli bacteria, bodily yeasts, and the classical witch Medea, while elsewhere a contemporary version of the goddess Artemis appears in Appalachia. Carter's poetic vision imbues everyday moments such as putting on a coat, piercing an ear, confronting racism and patriarchy, or eating onion slices with a new definition of magic as "the human thing."

About this title

About the Author

Catherine W. Carter is the author of three previous poetry collections, most recently Larvae of the Nearest Stars, two chapbooks, and a co-translation of John Gower’s Middle English poem The Lover’s Confession. Her work has also appeared in Poetry magazine, Ploughshares, RHINO, and Best American Poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807185078
• ISBN 13: 9780807185070
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128