The poems of Geosmin (the scent of soil) are celebration of the startling and shimmering earth, praising creatures of soil, sky, and in-between. Ecologist, farmer, mother, and poet Catherine Young honors land and what it means to be human in this world. Her poems journey through earth, water, tree, and stone, the heartbreak and beauty of seasons across a rural year, and take a panoramic view of aging. Young paints a deep map of Wisconsin’s Driftless region while evoking a place found within regions of the heart.

Catherine Young is a writer and performing artist whose work is infused with a keen sense of place. She is author of the ecopoetry collection Geosmin (scent of soil) and the memoir Black Diamonds, Blue Flames forthcoming from Torrey House Press. Her writing has been published in the anthologies The Driftless Reader, Contours, Permanent Vacation II: Eighteen Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks, Imagination and Place: Cartographyand is forthcoming in Essential Voices. Her work appears internationally and nationally in literary journals, including About Place Journal, Ascent, Minding Nature, Cold Mountain, River Heron, Fourth River, Hippocampus, and Midwest Reviewamong others. Her poetry has been published as broadsides for Fermentation Fest Farm Art / Dtour Passwords andMadison Metro Buslines and with Wisconsin Poet Laureates, her poetry was recently commissioned for Mdw Fair Wisconfluence.

A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays, Catherine Young worked as a national park ranger, farmer, educator, and mother before completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She holds degrees in Environmental Science, Physical Geography, and Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Catherine leads writing workshops, and records the weekly WDRT radio Landwardpodcast.

Rooted in farm life, Catherine lives with her family in Wisconsin's Driftless Area where she is totally in love with meandering streams. She deeply believes in the use of story and art as tools for transforming the world, and she holds concern for water. For more information, writings and podcasts, please visit:

Livestream: Catherine Young