Author Biography

Catherine Chandler is a Canadian poet. Born in New York City and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, she emigrated to Canada in 1972. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Wilkes University, and she completed her graduate studies at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She held the academic appointment of Course Lecturer in Spanish in the Department of Translation Studies and also served as McGill's International Affairs Officer for Latin America. She also taught Spanish at Concordia University's Language Institute in Montreal.

Her first full-length collection of poetry, Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011) was shortlisted in 2013 for the prestigious Poets' Prize. A second full-length collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons, was published by Biblioasis Press (Windsor, Ontario) in April, 2014, and was, according to publisher Dan Wells, "our key poetry title for spring, centering the line-up" for the publishing house's 10th anniversary. Her third full-length collection, The Frangible Hour, was awarded the 2016 Richard Wilbur Award and was published by the University of Evansville Press. A book of Catherine's sonnets, This Sweet Order, was published in 2012 by Kelsay Books/White Violet Press. Other chapbooks include For No Good Reason and All or Nothing.

Catherine's latest collections, Pointing Home (lyric poetry and translations) and Annals of the Dear Unknown (an historical verse-tale written in blank verse), are now available from Kelsay Books and Amazon.com.

In addition to the Richard Wilbur Award, Catherine received the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award in 2010 for her poem, "Coming to Terms", the final judge being A. E.  Stallings. She was also a finalist in the Nemerov competition in 2017 ("Celebration" judged by Dana Gioia), 2016 ("Family at Sunset Beach, California" judged by Rachel Hadas), 2015 ("Oleka" judged by Gail White), 2014 ("Afterwords" judged by R.S. Gwynn), 2013 ("The Watchers at Punta Ballena, Uruguay" judged by Dick Davis), 2012 ("Composure" judged by Rhina P. Espaillat), 2009 ("Singularities" judged by David Middleton) and 2008 ("Missing" judged by Timothy Steele). Her poem, "Pack Rat", a parody of Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Renascence", was a finalist in the 2015 X.J. Kennedy Parody Award. Other awards and nominations are listed on her Awards and Nominations page.

Nine of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Catherine edited the late poet Timothy Murphy's Last Poems (North Dakota State University Press, 2021). She also co-edited the Greenwood Poets' chapbook, Passages (Greenwood Centre for Living History, 2010) and she has been the featured and/or invited poet at numerous local, national and international venues, including the Newburyport Literary Festival in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Beyond Baroque in Venice, California, First Wednesday Formal near San Francisco, StoryFest in Hudson, Quebec, Carmine Street Metrics in New York City, the Powwow River Poets Reading Series in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the Yellow Door, Argo Bookstore, Drawn and Quarterly Bookstore, Kafé Poe, and the Atwater Library in Montreal.

She served as moderator of the advanced metrical poetry forum, Eratosphere, where she twice hosted the annual sonnet competition, in conjunction with poets Turner Cassity and R. S. Gwynn. In 2013 she served as co-host and judge for the competition, in conjunction with poet Gail White.

Catherine's poetry, translations from French and Spanish, reviews, essays and podcasts have been widely published throughout the English-speaking world in print journals, anthologies and online sites, most recently in Quadrant, Measure, The Evansville Review, American Arts Quarterly, Think Journal, The Rotary Dial, Orbis, First Things, The Centrifugal Eye, The Comstock Review, The Alabama Literary Review, The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics (Lewis Turco), The New York Times, and The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems (Theresa M. Welford).

Catherine currently lives in Saint-Lazare-de-Vaudreuil, Québec and Punta del Este, Uruguay.