Bio

Cat is an art educator and movement psychotherapist from Somerset. Cat enjoys to create art in many forms, particularly poetry. She is currently completing her first concept poetry collection exploring the darker sides of human experience.

Artist Statement 

Catherine Balaq is a writer, art educator and body psychotherapist. Her poetry play ‘Fuck the Moon’ was commissioned by Paper Nations and short-listed for the Bristol Old Vic Open Sessions 2019. Short-listed for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2021and a finalist of Lyra Festival. In 2022 she is shortlisted for the London Library Emerging Writers programme, the Dai Fry award and winner of The Poetry School MA scholarship. She is co-editor at Black Cat Press and working on her first novel. 

‘Animaginary’ is her debut poetry collection. animaginary is a journey through the archetypes of the subconscious. The beasts of the underworld hold our hopes and fears, life in one hand and death in the other. The collection moves through each incantation, entwining animism and psychology with the intention of personal alchemy. It ends with ‘The World’, eating its own tail in a metaphorical transformation. 

The reader will meet the author in a mythical landscape which explores living and working through the darker side of the self in a Hecartic tradition. Animal spirits haunt through the collection as shapeshifters, bringing self actualisation in degrees both terrifying and rewarding. The poems speak of family, grief, gender roles, class and body politics.

Why MW is important

Participating in Magical Women Communication Cards project was important to me because Having a visual representation of feeling and experience is invaluable. An image can say a thousand words and often transcends conscious thoughts to resonate directly with the body.