Lamar University Press

116 Pages $15.00 USD

Review by Amanda Daria Stoltz

Every poem in Katherine Hoerth’s Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots is a fresh gust of wind. In this stunning collection, Hoerth deconstructs the complexity of femininity, and the steep binary that makes feminine beauty both dangerous and powerful, sinful and godly. These poems are effortlessly steeped in nature and mythology, and each is as satisfying as Eve’s first taste of forbidden fruit.

Hoerth teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Texas Pan American, and it’s no mystery why she’s got a chili pepper rating on Ratemyprofessors.com; her poems are spicy hot. Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots is Hoerth’s second collection of poetry, and it keeps its promise to be as sexy (and powerful) as a Goddess wearing cowboy boots. Never have I read poems so encompassing of womanhood. They range from naivety to caution, from shamefulness to exhibition. They are as if Faulkner’s Caddy wrote poetry. Continue reading →