George House

What I Know About Innocence, by Cathryn Essinger, is a book of poems connected by the conviction that everything has meaning. Essinger ponders the significance of things from a mouse to murder in a series of memorable poems that keep unfolding in the reader's mind long after the book is closed.

About the Author

Cathryn Essinger is the author of two other books of poetry: A Desk In The Elephant House – awarded the Walt McDonald First Book Award from Texas Tech University Press – and My Dog Does Not Read Plato, the runner up in the Main Street Rag book competition in 2004.

Essinger received an Ohio Arts Council grant and was Ohio's Poet of the Year in 2005. She is also a member of The Greenville Poets, a small but well-published poetry group that does workshop presentations and supports the work of young writers. She is a professor of English at Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio.

Her latest work, What I Know About Innocence, features a video poem by David Essinger, who teaches creative writing at the University of Findlay.

Praise for What I Know About Innocence

Whether tapping into the secret language of dogs or mockingbirds or light, whether tuning the mind's radar in order to detect and understand the loneliness of a mouse or the hopes of bees, whether opening up her own heart to explore the nuances of love for a son and even nameless hippies – Cathryn Essinger reminds us of the magic that exists everywhere if we just pay attention.

In wise and elegant, expertly crafted poems that we have come to expect from this masterful poet, we are given the chance to rethink what it means to live in a world that both gives and withholds meaning. As I read, I felt myself opening more fully to the planet's mysteries, regaining a sense of innocence, and learning how the world/is colored again by wonder/and mute admiration of the unknown.

–Neil Carpathios

Author of Playground of the Flesh 
and The Axis of the Imponderables

In Cathryn Essinger's new book of poems What I Know About Innocence, her trademark, wit, grace and dash are put to brilliant use to explore the realities and mysteries of the world. Stories and relationships are made magical. Dogs and cats, birds, mice and bees more than hold their own with people. Babies levitate and a eulogy for a Big Blue Ball will break your heart.

The last quarter of the book deals with the impact of a murder on a farming community, proving once again that a good poet backs off from nothing. And Cathryn Essinger is one of our best poets.

–Tim Suermondt
Author of Trying to Help the Elephant Man Dance

The whole book abounds in verbal and visual delights, told in an unaffected but highly affecting voice that sounds both neighborly and newsworthy. It's a pleasure to be caught up in these catchy poems.

–John Drury
Author of The Poetry Dictionary and Creating Poetry

Courtesy of Main Street Rag Publishing Company