USM Graduate Student Debuts First Full-Length Poetry Collection

Thu, 06/29/2023 - 09:11am | By: Ivonne Kawas

Katherine Gaffney, a graduate student in the Center for Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM), is excited to debut her first full-length poetry collection Fool in a Blue House. (The University of Tampa Press, 2023).

Gaffney is the recipient of the prestigious 2022 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, which includes a $2,000 cash award and the publication of Gaffney's collection in both hardback and paperback formats by the University of Tampa Press.

“Having the poems and thus the manuscript as a whole recognized by this prize really meant the world to me as a burgeoning poet—it felt like these poems were getting little crowns I had hoped they might deserve,” stated Gaffney. “More importantly, having the team at University of Tampa Press care so much for this book, take so much time in editing and laying out this book in connection with this prize really made the process of bringing this collection into the world such a delightful and enriching experience.”

Gaffney shares the significance of debuting her first collection and the feeling of holding the book in her hands as a first-time author.

“Debuting my first collection and holding the book in my hands feels like a persimmon tree finally bearing fruit after tending to it from a seed,” said Gaffney. “It is such a gift to see these poems correspond with one another in a way that can reach readers other than myself and those dear to me, bound so beautifully.”

The poems in Gaffney’s collection are full of heartbreak, love, hope, but also growth.

“This book was born from a time populated by re-constellating intimate relationships, familial, romantic, maternal impulses toward a menagerie of animals and myself,” expressed Gaffney. “It was a tectonic time. Fool in a Blue House will always be dear to me as it captures such a key time in my development as a person—embodied, tender, but also a bit feral.”

During Gaffney’s time at USM, she mentions she has been able to stretch her skills not just as a poet but also as a scholar of literature and writing pedagogy.

“At USM’s Center for Writers, I have had an incredible opportunity to grow my community of writers and develop a new project that branches away from this first full-length collection in ways that challenge myself and my conception of poetry,” said Gaffney. “What's more, the time I have spent in this program has really helped me stretch my skills not just as a poet but also as a scholar of literature and writing pedagogy. And, of course, the sharpening of all those skills certainly circles back to my own poetry as these disciplines are all interconnected in one way or another.”

Her time at USM also helped her find the avenues to write and develop new poems that essentially made it into the final collection.

“The space the program provided for reading and workshopping the work of new, fellow poets and colleagues (who have now become dear friends) was instrumental in helping me round out the manuscript,” said Gaffney. “That is, thanks to my time in the Center for Writers I have been able to write and develop new poems and more globally edit, revise, and reorder the manuscript to shape its final form. Further, the emphasis on literary citizenship at USM has truly shaped my literary consciousness in ways I am eternally grateful for and in ways that have made my poems increasingly community oriented.”

Gaffney is a native of Hollywood, Fla. and holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

You can read her work in jubilat, Harpur Palate, Mississippi Review, Meridian, and elsewhere. She has won the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize among others and has attended the 

TinHouse Summer Writing Workshop, the SAFTA Residency, and the Sewanee Writers Conference as a scholar. Her first chapbook, Once Read as Ruin, was published by Finishing Line Press.

Check out Gaffney’s Poetry Collection. Learn more about USM’s Center for Writers.