Katerina (Vaughan) Fretwell was born in New York City in 1944. Poet, artist, journalist, reviewer, and former registered social worker, she’s in the League's Feminist Caucus, Canada PEN and the Writers Union of Canada. She's taught poetry from kindergarten to Dalhousie's English 100 and Creative Writing in Dartmouth's Adult Education. She has given poetry readings from Halifax to Vancouver. Her poems are published in 50 journals across North America, including Prism International, Descant, Windsor Review, Rampike, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly. She performed in the Cabaret at the League of Canadian Poets/Playwrights Union of Canada 1994 Annual General Meeting, was featured in the TV show in Toronto called "Motions In Poetry”, and on Susan Helwig's "In Other Words" on CKLN Radio Toronto. She gave a poetry reading & art show at Heather Spears' Upper Canada Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark Nov-Dec, 1996 and at the West Parry Sound District Museum, Feb-Mar, 1997. Her "Quartzite Dialogues" poems were set to music by Michael Horwood & mounted twice at the Festival of the Sound in 1999 and at 25th Anniversary, 2004, and at the Takefu Music Centre in Japan, 1999. She chaired the League’s Lowther Jury, 2005-2006.
Awards
Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, honourable mention, poetry, 1977, 1979.
Cross-Canada Writers Quarterly, finalist, poetry, 1983-86, 1989.
Parry Sound Poetry Competition, 1st prize, 1990, 1991.
BS Nova Scotia Poetry Awards, honourable mention, 1990.
CAA's Northern Ontario Poetry Competition, 1st prize, 1997.
Artfocus 10th Annual Art Show, Watercolour, 1st prize, 2001.
Selected Anthologies
Feminist Caucus 25th Anniversary Anthology, Editor, Living Archives, forthcoming.
And no one knows the blood we share, Editor, Living Archives, 2005.
The Dry Wells of India, Harbour Publishing, 1989.
Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahiers de la femme, 1988, 1991, 1993.
Between Cultures, (W)rites of Spring, LCP, London ON, 1995.
Hawthorn. Hearts. Holograms, (W)rites of Spring, LCP, Port Perry, 1996.
Fretwell/LCP CV Urban/Rural Women Writing Place, LCP, Maja Bannerman, ed., 1996.
Mix Six, 6-poet anthology, Mekler & Deahl, 1996.
Close To The Heart, Breast Cancer Anthology, Sept. 6, '96 launch.
Licking Honey Off a Thorn, (W)rites of Spring, LCP, Sudbury, 1996.
Polestar Visions, Elizabeth St. Jacques, Judge & CAA Temiskaming, 1997.
Toccata, Cranberry Tree Press Anthology, 2005.
Inviting the Incubus, Kissing the Succubi: the Muse in Canadian Women’s Poetry, Living Archives, 2005
Books in Print
Fretwell, Kathy
Remyth. Cranberry Tree Press, 1997. ISBN: 0-9681325-3-7.
Critics
“A compelling poetic history... I defy you to read (Shaking Hands...) and remain unmoved.” Maria Jacobs, publisher, Wolsak and Wynn.
“Shaking Hands With the Night honours the process of grief and recuperation in rhythms imbued with medieval grace.... Rich with echoes of Yeats and Vaughan, these poems articulate a language veined with the topography of healing.” Catherine Owen, author of five books of poetry.
“Few poets have attempted to integrate visual art with poetry, and I know of none who have done it with such power. Fretwell’s paintings tightly mirror the book’s fall into a black hole and its rise again into light, as Fretwell creates a self out of words and leaves a dark universe behind....at the book’s close the metrics rise through the language of her ancestor, the 17th century Welsh mystical
poet Henry Vaughan, into a place of wisdom known best in our time in the transcendent poetry of Kathleen Raine. On the basis of that promise and Fretwell’s integration of her luminous paintings, this slim, unpretentious, and at times sketched-in book heralds the entrance of a true poet.” Review of Shaking Hands With The Night by Harold Rhenisch, author of “Free Will” and co-winner of Malahat Long Poem Prize, 2005.
“Shaking Hands with the Night is, on the surface, more straightforward: a confessionalist poetic engaging in the thorny prospect of hagiography – in this case, the poet dealing with childhood memories of an alcoholic home, her own alcoholism, and painful road to sobriety. The voice of the other this time is supplied by abstract expressionist ... paintings of star nebulae, galaxies, and gelid, frog-spawn-like forms of macrocosmic forces in equipoise or pending birth. ... Katerina Fretwell’s poetry stands comparison with the work of Plath and Sexton too, though she has a more anecdotal and has a more restrained style and voice. I did not find her strident or sentimental in the least and would heartily recommend this book to anyone willing to stray off the commercial path.” Richard Stevenson.
Reviews on forthcoming Samsara: Canadian in Asia:
“These are remarkable images of an intensely experienced Asian tour, shimmering with light, opulence, sober reflection, steamy markets, sweaty haggling, childlike clarity, political astuteness, ironic wit. Delicious engagements. A necessary trip.” Di Brandt
“With these poems and paintings of a trip to Asia in 2005, Fretwell displays the innocence and enthusiasm of a wise child at play in the world’s oldest cultures, unabashed, refreshingly free of any hesitation towards expressions of delight, and always aware of the preposterousness of human pride. The effect is simultaneously wise and charming.” Harold Rhenisch
“With vivid poems and paintings, Katerina Fretwell describes a journey through Thailand, Vietnam and China in what she herself would recognise as “child-fresh” colours. She shows you all, from her delight in chocolates on the pillow of her hotel room in Bangkok to making a mistake at the Terracotta Warriors and across the bridge over the Kwai without omitting the dark currents underneath these now neat, bright tourist spots. If you can’t go to that part of the world yourself, read this book and see, hear, smell and taste the journey: See the Great Wall snaking up and down the undulating landscape; hear the hawkers on Tian’anmen Square drown out the ghostly student cries; smell the tang of air-cured flounder in the markets; taste “the seven feasts from sculpted shrimp to swan-curved sweets. You will like what you are given.” Maria Jacobs
Contact
Katerina Fretwell, email: jackf@zeuter.com
RR# 2, Parry Sound, website: www.jacf.com
ON P2A 2W8 www.ucanbuyart.com
705-378-2512
Poet in the School
(Parry Sound)
phone: 705-378-2512
email: jack@zeuter.com
Born in NYC in 1944, Fretwell has a BA (sociology), an MSW (social work) and most of an honours BA in English. Poet, artist, teacher, journalist, Fretwell has taught poetry to all levels from kindergarten to University level, adult education and young authors conferences. She has two books of poetry published by Fiddlehead Press, poems in 42 international journals including Prism international, Descant, The Windsor Review, Bogg, Rampike, and the Pittsburgh Quarterly, and has read in Halifax, Fredericton, Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, London and Winnipeg. She has been on Motions in Poetry, a TV broadcast and the radio programme In Other Words, and she is anthologized in Dry Wells of India. Her book Remyth published by Cranberry Tree Press includes fairytales and legends and may be of interest to school children.
Grade Levels: all
Fees: standard
Classroom Approach:
Experience
in teaching all levels and grades has convinced Fretwell that an atmosphere
of spontaneous discovery releases creative flow. To foster this mood, Fretwell
first reads her own and sometimes other's work, then involves students through
collective and individual exercises in critiquing and creating poetry. Together,
she and students (and teacher if desirous) explore the oral/musical, visual/concrete,
and kinetic/performance aspects of poetry. If so desired and possible, students
create their own literary magazine.