Bookmark Interview: Kath MacLean: Kat Among The Tigers

Edmonton poet Kath MacLean began a quest years ago when she stumbled upon the journal of New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield while looking for the poetry of Robert Frost at the U of A’s Rutherford Library. Mansfield intrigued her and would not let go. A result of that quest is a collection of exquisite poems by Kath MacLean dedicated to the spirit and life of Mansfield and entitled Kat Among the Tigers, published by University of Alberta Press.

Mansfield’s life was short, brilliant, tragic and decidedly memorable. Born to wealth in colonial New Zealand in 1888, she moved to Europe in the dawn of the 20th Century and emerged as an important modernist writer and a free spirit who had love affairs with both men and women. As one writer said of her, she was “sexually reckless and socially excitable, temperamentally damaged by illness and as malicious and chilling as she could be appealing and vulnerable’. Mansfield was acquainted with such writers as Virginia Woolf, who said that Mansfield was the only writer of whom she was jealous. Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood both used her as a character in their novels. D.H. Lawrence modeled his character Gudrun in the book “Women in Love” on Mansfield.  Mansfield fought a long battle with tuberculosis, finally succumbing at the age of 34 years.

I sat down with Kath MacLean recently to talk about her book Kat Among the Tigers and her fascination with Katherine Mansfield. You can listen to that interview by clicking on the Title of this Blog Entry. 

NOTE: Kath MacLean will formally launch the book and provide a multi-media presentation of her work on Thursday, April 14th, starting at 7 PM at the Expressionz Café at 9938 – 70 Avenue in Edmonton.