Weathering Under the Cat by Lylanne Musselman

In Weathering Under the Cat, Lylanne Musselman’s kittens and cats serve as a leitmotif purring throughout its memoir poetry, a constant in this literary woman’s life beginning with her Hoosier girlhood. So much of the weathering of her story unfolds in feline presence and that old simpatico between women and cats, a kind of wintercount marked by what the poet Rane Arroyo called “Buddhas in Fur.” Every cat marks a meaningful time in the author’s life. Each cat provides enduring comfort in a world that can still be especially punishing to female poets, in this case one who is also gay. But Musselman’s chapbook does not ask for pity; any wounds are mentioned as quietly as cat paws crossing a littered street. While reading these poems I kept flashing on the French writer, Colette, and her love for cats, delighted by how we Americans have a similar writer who dwells in Indianapolis! Like a cat rolling around in a splash of sunshine, this brave book is one of affirmation despite the dark complexities and emotional storms of human affairs.

–Susan Deer Cloud, Poet & NEA Fellow

Lylanne Musselman’s chapbook, Weathering Under the Cat, is a compelling and lyrical collection of poems that explores the bond of the speaker with her cats over the years amidst stormy relationships with ex-husbands and – lovers, and other cat haters. These feline friends sustain and inspire through tornados and strife of all sorts with the “familiar baptismal pulse of a purr” or “the whiskers of my cat’s chin lying on my forehead.” Musselman’s chapbook is both an ode to present and past cats in her life, with imagery in each poem that places us in the moment.

–Barbara Zimmermann, poet and fiction writer – currently working on a collection of short stories