Rosemary Catacalos

In 1984 Catacalos' first book, As Long As It Takes, a letterpress chapbook, as well as her first full-length collection, Again for the First Time, were published. Again for the First Time Catacalos' first full-length collection received the 1985 Texas Institute of Letters poetry prize. It was also reissued in 2013 on its 30th anniversary. Her poems were widely published in high school and college textbooks, among other venues. Her work was twice collected in the annual Best American Poetry anthology and earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Stegner Fellowship Program at Stanford University, and the Paisano Fellowship of the Texas Institute of Letters/University of Texas at Austin. Her literary works were also featured in numerous literary magazines, including Southwest Review, The Progressive and Parnassus: Poetry in Review. She received several Pushcart Prize nominations, and received a Special Mention in Pushcart Prize IX: Best of the Small Presses. According to literary critics, Catacalos' work was "informed by mythology in ways that seem at odds with standard poetic practice today. These influences operate not as inert showpieces, but as live observations on the nature of time and mortality, emphasizing the spiritual ecstasy inherent in ordinary experience." Many of Catacalos' poems deconstruct women's labor in a way that makes them have almost a spiritual quality.