Donna Cate Henderson
"If you did not look
what is it you 'loved'"
(George Oppen, "Of Hours")
About
Donna Henderson is a poet, writer, editor, visual artist, singer and songwriter. She is the author of three critically-acclaimed collections of poems, two of which (Transparent Woman and The Eddy Fence) were finalists for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. She is also a co-founder of Airlie Press, a shared-work collective poetry publisher. She has taught and performed poetry in community and university venues internationally and in the U.S. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in magazines, anthologies, performance venues and recordings. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College Program for Writers, and has received two writing fellowships at Playa artists' residency, where she largely completed her new collection (Send Word) which was released in 2022.
Donna loves artistic collaboration and cross-genre creative projects, especially those involving music. For many years, she performed with the poetry and piano trio Tonepoem, based at Western Oregon University. In 2010-2011 she collaborated with Brazilian-American composer and pianist Cassio Vianna on the lyrics for the song cycle cd Letters to Grace. More recently, she contributed her poetry and vocals to composer William Whitley's cd, I Dream Awake.
Donna has made and exhibited her visual art from a young age, and studied studio art at Western Oregon University. For several years her work was regularly displayed at The River Gallery in Monmouth, Oregon, as well as other venues. Since her move from the Willamette Valley to Maupin, Oregon a few years ago, the active community of artists she discovered there (as well as the landscape itself) inspired and encouraged her to start exploring, producing and exhibiting new work, which includes photography, watercolor, acrylic, oils, collage, and mixed media.
Professionally, Donna practices psychotherapy in Maupin (visit that website at www.canyonwrenwellness.com) where she lives on the Deschutes River (well, next to it) in Oregon, with her husband, Rich Sutliff.
Check These Out!
Watch the archived recordings of three of Donna's personal favorite readings: "Windfall" series, February 21, 2023 and at the Milwaukie (Oregon) Poetry Series on May 9, 2012 and April 10, 2024
Sample music from the Cassio Vianna Jazz Orchestra's Cd, Letters To Grace
Listen to excerpts from the cd I Dream Awake (released in 2017)
Listen to the Rattle Magazine audio archives of Donna's readings of the poems Shenpa , Postcard from Kailua-Kona, and To Tinnitus
Take a look at the terrific catalog of poems and poets at Oregon's own Airlie Press
Read the interview with Donna (June 21, 2022) for Oregon Arts Watch, on the confluence of poetry and psychotherapy.
Watch photographer Blake Robertshaw's Knowing Oregon video interview of Donna (September, 2023), on poetry, psychotherapy, and ecology)
Read Drew Myron's "Fast Five" interview with Donna (October, 2024)
