The Tornado Is the World

by Catherine Pierce

At the heart of award-winning poet Catherine Pierce's much-anticipated third book, a powerful tornado churns, spinning out poems of disaster and love, of sirens and wrecked landscapes, of warnings heeded and not. These poems stare down fear from the inside, and ask what it means to walk straight into a splintering world both profane and sacred.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 2016

About the author

Catherine Pierce served as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2021-2025 and is the author of four books of poems: Danger Days (2020), The Tornado Is the World (2016), The Girls of Peculiar (2012), and Famous Last Words (2008), all from Saturnalia Books. Each of her most recent three books won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Prize; Famous Last Words won the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Two new books are forthcoming in 2026: a memoir, Foxes for Everybody, from Northwestern University Press, and a poetry collection, Dear Beast, from Saturnalia.

Pierce’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, New England Review, FIELD, Pleiades, Gettysburg Review, and the 2019 and 2021 Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Ecotone, The Rumpus, The Millions, Cincinnati Review, and River Teeth. In 2019, she was named a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, and in 2022 she was selected as an Academy of American Poets’ Laureate Fellow.

From 2007-2024, Pierce was professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State. She recently moved with her family back to her home state of Delaware, where she runs Studio & Craft, a poetry community, and continues to write, teach, and spend as much time outside as possible.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw and tearing - takes you out of your area of comfort and puts you into a landscape of destruction that is both physical and spiritual - heart felt and heart breaking.

[Terry Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have now read this book 4 times, and every read has added to my apprehension of the poems and the book.

[Christie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! Read my formal review here: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2016/12/...

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

from The Tornado Is the World by Caterine Pierce

Relevant Details

The bar was called The Den of Iniquity,
or maybe The Cadillac Lounge—whatever
it was, its sign was a neon martini glass,
or a leg ending in stiletto. Maybe a parrot. Anyway,
in that place I danced without anyone
touching me but seven men watched
from the bar with embered, truculent eyes.
Or I danced with my boyfriend’s hands
hot around my ribs. Or I didn’t have a boyfriend
and no one was looking and my dance moves
were nervous, sick-eel-ish, and eventually
I just sat down. What I remember for sure
is that was the night I drank well gin
and spun myself into a terrible headache.
That was the night I thought I was pregnant
and drank only club soda. That was
the night I made a tower from Rolling Rock
bottles sometime after midnight
and management spoke to me quietly
but only after snapping a Polaroid
for the bathroom Wall of Fame. In any case,
when I finally stumbled or strode
or snuck outside, the air was Austin-thick,
Reno-dry, Montpellier-sharp. I don’t remember
if my breath clouded or vanished
or dropped beneath the humidity. I don’t remember
if my breath clouded or vanished
or dropped beneath the humidity. I don’t remember
if the music pulsing from inside
was the Velvet Underground or Otis Redding
or the local band of mustached banjo men.
You know this poem has a gimmick,
and you’re right. But understand: if I wrote
Cadillac Lounge, boyfriend, beer tower, soul
it would be suddenly true, a memory lit
by lightning flash. Who needs that sort
of confinement? If the way forward
is an unbending line, let the way back
be quicksilver, beading and re-swirling. Forgive
the trick and let me keep this mix-and-match,
this willful confusion of bars, of beaches,
of iced overpasses and hands on my hands,
all the films with gunfights, all the films
with dogs, the Kandinsky, the Rembrandt,
the moment the moon’s face snapped
into focus, the moment I learned
the word truculent, each moment the next
and the one before, and in this blur,
oh, how many lifetimes I can have.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fierce, gorgeous explorations of vulnerability in the face of a treacherous natural world. These poems mine terrain that is, especially for parents, both familiar and frightening, with a compelling energy and compassion that kept me pausing to linger over phrases and images but also feeling urgent to read more.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I especially enjoyed the poems that were from the perspective of the tornado, so I think my favorite section was the strong middle of the book. Apparently, this book was very successful, and many of the poems were published in lit mags first. I need to learn from this poet. Good title.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book of poems. Searing, smart, witty, lyrical, and powerful.

[Megan's Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some extremely powerful poems in this collection!! Tugged at my heart and I didn't want to let it go.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love love. Beautiful words. I will return to this one again when I need inspiration.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m about to turn around and start reading this collection again—it is so good!!

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five out of five stars for the resilience of humans, and the way they will hold on until the end, and after, with their teeth.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this one! Different themed sections kept the book segmented and fresh.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a few real gems in here

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a poem from this book, called “The mother warns the tornado,” for an English class and found it beautiful and terrifying. It speaks of a sort of understandable selfishness, a mother’s desire to hold onto her child forever. She’s willing to do anything, and the poem is her musings on what she will do to the tornado if it tries to take her child. She admits she’s blessed with simple yet powerful things, that her life’s balance of good and evil is uneven and perhaps it’s time for something bad to happen. But she’s unwilling to give in to fate or to chance, feeling that no force is more powerful than a mother’s protectiveness. There is a sense of both overreaction and danger, pulling me in even as a young, childless reader. I realize, too, that whatever her words may be, this mother feels a certain powerlessness. It’s something we all feel, having no choice but to wake up every day and tempt fate. Another thing that struck me about Pierce’s poem was the specific language used to make it feel relatable. Near the beginning, she mentions being thankful for ordinary things:
“the husband who sets free house lizards,
this red-doored ranch, my mother on the phone,
the fact that I can eat anything—gouda, popcorn,
massaman curry—without worry.”
This strange, undramatic specificity makes the narrative more compelling than if it tried to appeal to the most common denominator. I appreciated this poem and would love to read the rest of the book.

[H.D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant read, though the second section drags a little.