A three-way dialog between two lyric poets and contemporary paintings creates an experience of transcendence using symbol, mythos, Jungian archetypes and everyday life in the visual, spiritual and cosmic realms in this reading featuring Cathie Sandstrom and Thom Cooney.
About the authors
Cathie Sandstrom is a Los Angeles-based poet and writer. Her poems are online at the Academy of American Poets (poets.org) and have been published in The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Lyric, Ekphrasis and other leading literary journals. Anthologies include Coiled Serpent and Wide Awake, among others. A short story for children appeared in Zizzle. Of two nominations for a Pushcart prize, one was from The Southern Review. Her poem “You, Again” is in the artists’ book collection at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles and at the University of Southern California. Two of her poetry manuscripts have been finalists in several prestigious book competitions. Her essay “Braiding the Dreamscape” was published online by the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis, and her essay “Getting Broken” appears in Master Class: The Poetry Mystique by Suzanne Lummis. Her writing on veterans’ issues was published online by the Huffington Post for six years. Presently, she writes for the National Veterans Foundation and is working on her second novel along with new poetry. A military brat, she has never been “from around here” and still expects to hear from the Pentagon any day.
Thom Cooney Crawford, painter/sculptor/poet, earned his MFA in painting at Syracuse University and did graduate work in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design. He began his 40-year career in New York with two back-to-back shows at Tibor De Nagy gallery. He’s had 34 solo shows, 16 of them in New York City, and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. A recipient of an NEA grant, New York CAP Grant, Open Studio Award and Cill Rialaig Residency Award, he has taught at Middlebury College, Parsons School of Design, Binghamton University and Lafayette College. In the early 2000s he left the art world, college teaching and the U.S. to “clear the bramble” from his head. He lived first in Bavaria, then for four years on Ireland’s wild west coast on the Ring of Beara. On his return in 2010, he went into his studio and worked in isolation for a decade until his most recent one-person exhibit “The Inner Eye of Art / The Outer Spark.” His poem “Flutter” was published in Chronogram 2019, and he is the author of Raising of the Heart, a visual novel. He relocated his home and studio to the Los Angeles area in 2020. His art and poetry can be seen at www.thomcooneycrawford.com.