Photo by Megan Bean, Mississippi State University: Office of Public Affairs
Dr. Catherine Pierce became the Poet Laureate for the state of Mississippi in 2021. In the same year, she won a Pushcart Prize and previously in 2019. Pierce has received many grants and awards for her work, including a Creative Writers Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prize, and two Literary Artist Fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Dr. Pierce is also part of the Mississippi State Univeristy English Department and Co-Directs the Creative Writing program.
For more information on Dr. Pierce, please visit:
Dr. Pierce began a podcast this year, The Mississippi Poetry Podcast. a bi-weekly 15-minute production featuring poems and conversations with Mississippi poets, is housed on Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s Mississippi Arts Hour webpage.
"Poetry is alive and thriving in the Magnolia State! On the Mississippi Poetry Podcast you’ll hear poets sharing their work, telling their stories, and offering tips to help listeners flex their poetic muscles."
— Catherine Pierce
In addition to the podcast, Dr. Pierce also writes a monthly Poetry Break, on the Mississippi Books Page hosted by the University Press of Mississippi, Lemuria Books, and the Clarion-Ledger / Hattiesburg American, in conjunction with the independent bookstores of Mississippi.
Dr. Pierce's Poetry in MS State Libraries Collection:
Famous Last Words by 
The Girls of Peculiar by 
The Tornado Is the World by 
