Catherine Hardy
“My greatest desire as an artist is to remain open to many creative options. I am a poet first, but also write fiction (short stories) and now see how some of my stories are forming into a novel. I also love photography and film and see the connections between the attention to image and story in those genres and writing.”
Courses
Artist as Writer
Artist as Reader
Creative Writing (poetry, fiction, and screenwriting)
Art of Film
Writing for the Arts
The American Short Story
Artist’s Books and Contemporary Poetry
Illustration and the Written Word
Word / Image
“The most important thing I learned as an undergraduate was to see the connections among disciplines. Historical and political movements inform the arts and human psychology. Sometimes it looks like chaos and sometimes it all looks balanced and connected. You have to pay attention to the details of life.”
Contact
(513) 562-8765, chardy@artacademy.edu
“I teach at the Art Academy of Cincinnati because I love working in a creative environment and being part of and supporting the education of developing artists. This stimulates my own creative work (writing) and makes life more intriguing. We all have a similar approach to solving creative problems and therefore have a similar language when we discuss our individual subjects be it writing, film studies, sculpture, painting, design, etc.”
Degrees
Ph.D. English, Ohio State University, 1990
MFA Creative Writing (Poetry), Columbia University, 1983
BA English, University of Akron, 1981
“Artists who intrigue me are filmmakers David Lynch, Charlie Kaufman, Joel and Ethan Coen; fiction writers Sherman Alexie, T. C. Boyle, and Mary Gaitskill; and poets Jimmy Santiago Baca, Emily Dickinson, and Tony Hoagland to name a few.”
“The projects I am working on now are a collection of poems titled Some Spring and a collaborative research project titled Outriders and Trailblazers: Nontraditional Women in Ph.D. Programs.”
Two Catherine Hardy poems:
SOME SPRING
The tulips went crazy
that spring, poking
to hell, poking through
the fence, tangling
in the underbrush.
They were wild purple,
clashing with the azaleas.
Even storms couldn’t force
their petals to open.
Some never bloomed and
rotted at the heart.
It was a mistake to expect
more. It was a damn cold
spring that year. And you,
coughing up dirt,
not knowing what hit you.
SLICE
And then the waters
flow again,
not the bad kind,
not the ones out of
eyes, but the ones that
move you forward,
brought on by
a call, a letter, a plea
to whomever it may
concern. Yes, concern
is my paddle beyond
the tangled branches
beyond the boot
stuck in the mud.
I yell “hello” to those
onshore, and they,
curious but cooperating,
wave back
as I pass them
for this once and
never, perhaps, to ever
see them again.
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