Catherine Barnett

Catherine Barnett is an author, poet, and professor whose works explore the intricate complexities of race, gender, and sexuality. Barnett has published numerous collections of poetry, including Human Hours (2020), The Game of Boxes (2016), and Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced (2014). Barnett was the recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award and an individual artist grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts that same year. She has also been included in several anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry By American Women, The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, and The Best American Poetry.

Born in 1980, Catherine Barnett was raised in Michigan and earned her B.A. from Brown University in 2002. After graduating from Brown, she attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for her MFA in Poetry and then moved on to teach at Bard College for two years. She is currently an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

In Human Hours, Barnett's debut collection of poems, she confronts social and structural inequalities. Through her work, she engages difficult issues such as gentrification, racism, and sexism. The title of the collection, Human Hours, is a reference to the hours spent outside of the nine-to-five job, and Barnett uses this time to explore identity and explore relationships to community and self.

In her collection The Game of Boxes, Barnett reflects on the intersection of race and poverty as she looks at the hardships that many face in New York City. To do this, she constructs an interactive game of "boxes and labels"—with each poem representing a distinct box in the game. Through this game, the reader is able to engage with the structural inequity of much of contemporary life.

Her 2014 collection Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced takes its name from a line of Rilke's, as Barnett returns to the idea of seeking to understand interpersonal and communal relationships. Through her work, she examines the human experience in its complexity, acknowledging the power dynamics, intersections, and boundaries that can be both liberating and oppressive.

Catherine Barnett's award-winning works have been widely praised. Critic Robert Pinsky wrote that Barnett "sings a new song of love magic, desire and the cruelty of life," while New York Times critic Shirley Lauro praised Barnett for her "tender and subtle language of exploration." Her works have also been praised by major literary publications, such as Ploughshares, VQR, and Harvard Review.

Through her poetry and other work, Catherine Barnett has made an invaluable contribution to contemporary American culture. Her innovative and thoughtful writing uncovers the complexities of identity, privilege, and injustice while offering a much-needed invitation to have a more meaningful and active engagement with the world around us.