Katherine Hastings

Katherine Hastings is an American poetryAmerican poet living in Northern California.

Life
Hastings grew up in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco, a city that has deeply influenced her work. She received an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College.

Hastings has had poems published in numerous journals and anthologies, including but not limited to The Comstock Review, Roque Dalton Redux (Cedar Hill Press), Rattle, Calyx, California Quarterly, Beatitude — Golden Anniversary, The Ambush Review, Continent of Light (named after her poem), Diner, Birmingham Arts Journal, Potpourri, New College Review and Parthenon West Review as well as several books.

She currently lives in Sonoma County, California, where she founded and hosts the WordTemple Poetry Series, bringing well-established poets together with poets who have not yet published a book of poems. Poets who have read in the series include Jane Hirshfield, Carolyn Kizer, Ishmael Reed, David St. John, David Meltzer, Diane DiPrima, August Kleinzahler, Coleen McElroy, Ilya Kaminsky, Al Young, Michael McClure, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Kay Ryan, Paul Hoover and many others. Hastings hosts a radio program, also called WordTemple, on Santa Rosa KRCB 91 FM, an NPR affiliate. In June 2012 WordTemple became a non-profit organization under the umbrella of KRCB. Hastings is the Director; Advisory Board members include CJ Rayhill, Sharon Beckman and Nancy Cavers Dougherty.

In 2011, in response to the planned permanent closure of 70 California State Parks due to a budget crisis, Hastings put out a call to poets for poems inspired by State parks and published the anthology What Redwoods Know — Poems from California State Parks. Poets in the anthology include Francisco X. Alarcón, David Beckman, Janine Canan, Ed Coletti, Iris Jamahl-Dunkle, Katherine Hastings, Jodi Hottel, Paula Koneazny, Gail Larrick, Hannah Maggiora, Phyllis Meshulam, Lee Slonimsky and Robert Sward. Readings took place in Sebastopol, San Francisco, in the House of Happy Walls in Jack London State Park (Glen Ellen), Santa Cruz, Sacramento and Windsor, CA. All proceeds from book sales were donated to the California State Parks Foundation to support their efforts in keeping State parks open.

Writing
Lawrence Ferlinghetti writes of her book Sidhe, "I have read and reread your Sidhe. Lovely...It's your veiled history."

Poet and critic Jack Foley says: "Katherine Hastings' Sidhe (pronounced "she") is an illuminating and fanciful exploration of sexual and ethnic identity. It is also great fun. The poem's primary strength is its marvelous openness as ancestral Irish voices mingle suddenly with the voices of the street or with voices from the past. Sidhe is not a homily on how to live a life, but it is a brilliant enactment of how a life may be conceived. The poem posits a ritual of problematical growth in a San Francisco which now exists primarily in Katherine Hastings' imagination. The "Dark mother" who haunts the poem is simultaneously Ireland and the massive feminine figure (what Jung would have called an archetype) which constantly nudges this poet into the most varied of expressions. Call her Hastings' angel and—through the medium of this rich, gorgeous tapestry of a poem—our own."

Poetry

 * Wolf Spider. dPress, 2005.
 * Sidhe. dPress, 2006.
 * Lonidier Rampant. WordTemple Press (The Small Change Series), 2007.
 * Bird. Song. Knife. Heart.. WordTemple Press (The Small Change Series), 2008.
 * Updraft. Finishing Line Press, 2010.
 * Fog and Light. Ahadada Books (Ahadada Reader 3), 2011.
 * Cloud Fire. New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2012.

Edited

 * What Redwoods Know — Poems from California State Parks. 2012.