Somewhere in Dare, an old man heads out with his “honest-to-God bindle-stick” bouncing on his shoulder. On the way, there’s a cement Christ with no more blood to bleed on the Interstate Highway. This is not far from a Ramada Inn with a lounge where the color red is religion, and the poet feels safe at the bar, studying “the brave choreography.” Closer to home is a cat named Baudelaire whose eyes could scare time. Michael Catherwood has caught countless such images speaking for themselves as metaphors of the
deep interiors in the interior of America. Speaking for himself, he tries to accept “the business of our breath” enough to keep doing it. The achievement of these poems is itself enough to keep wanting more of them.
—Michael Heffernan
It’s been awhile since I’ve read a collection of poems as authentic, disciplined, well-crafted and moving as Mike Catherwood’s new book Dare—like a good hunting knife, the steel in these poems performs its operations with refi nement and a necessary brutality, lifting the skin from everything Catherwood lays hands on.
—Erin Belieu
