Overview

The Many Lives of Cathouse Farm/Tales of a Rural Brothel is the culmination of a decade of research into the 250-year history about the farm where the author has lived since 2000. The book contains historical facts and poetic musings about many of the inhabitants who have lived on the farm from 1770 to present. The small farmhouse is the original cape dwelling built in 1770 by two Revolutionary War soldiers from the Weeks Family and farmed by four subsequent generations. During the Prohibition era, the farmhouse was maintained as part of a rural brothel that continued to operate until the late 1940's. Presently Cathouse Farm is also home to sheep, chickens, dogs, and of course, many cats.

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9781950063338

Table of Contents

Reviews

The Many Lives of Cathouse Farm - Tales of a Rural Brothel, a finely-crafted collection of poems giving voice to a 255-year-old farmhouse and its surprising history-and to the people and animals who have lived there since before the American Revolution. ""We search all our days / for a place called home,"" Thurston observes, charting in meditative and musical tones the universal human need for rootedness and connection. In tracing the loves and losses of those who came before us-and our own part in the great drama-she reminds us that even if our name be recorded at the Registry of Deeds, we are really no more than caretakers, tenants, and that love grows in the soil and souls of those who paint clapboards and trim, plant flowers and water them, wander the pastures and woods of the world. -David Thoreen, Assumption University This compelling and singular collection is an expert weaving of history and poetry. The story of Cathouse Farm begins when poet bg Thurston spies ""a small red farmhouse nestled behind tall sugar maples"" which beckons her with its For Sale sign. Images presented throughout these pages elucidate Thurston's narrative of dwelling and landscape. We listen as the very house itself speaks in ""Sister Houses, 1771"" and ""The Ruined House"" and hear occupants, such as Sarah Weeks, who ""labored long for all / these years on this forlorn farm, / birthed and buried our babies- / once within the same week."" Section 3 links us to Prohibition-era owner George F. Rivers, who ""set the property up as a speakeasy and rural brothel"" and inspired persona poems that do not look away from these women's struggles. This book is a significant and fascinating accomplishment, full of curiosity, empathy and respect for the ghostly inhabitants of Cathouse Farm. -Judith Ferrara, A Feast of Losses: Yetta Dine and Her Son, Stanley Kunitz The 1700's house speaks in tongues. Laths, horsehair plaster, hand-forged nails, wide pine boards; it holds hardscrabble lives filled with sounds of sweeping, smells of bread and woodsmoke, cries of children. bg Thurston, in The Many Lives of Cathouse Farm - Tales of a Rural Brothel, listens and gives voice to those who have lived and died in this house, her home. As Winfield Scott Weeks, of the poem ""The Lost Boy,"" knows: ""Some souls stay tethered to a place."" bg understands that ""Loss / is a language all its own."" but life continues and, in this life, we are joined with those who have died before us, like Billie, ""the last lady."" In ""Gardening with Billie,"" Thurston writes: ""We are joined by what we plant, hands / dug deep in this soil that grew crops / and cows for two hundred years."" Their lives restored through careful research, those who opened the doors to Cathouse Farm welcome us home. -Susan Roney O'Brien, Thira and Bone Circle

Author Information

bg Thurston lives with her husband on a sheep farm in Warwick, Massachusetts. After a career in computers and finance, she receivedher MFA in Poetry from Vermont College in 2002. She has taughtpoetry courses at Lasell Village, online for Vermont College, andconducts poetry workshops.Her first book, Saving the Lamb, by Finishing Line Press was aMassachusetts Book Awards highly recommended reading choice.Her second book, Nightwalking, was released by Haleys in 2011.Her third book, The Many Lives of Cathouse Farm/Tales of a RuralBrothel, is the culmination of a decade of historical research abouther 1770's farmhouse.

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