Poetry Reading: Breaking a Mare
Christina Thatcher will share some selections from her new book, Breaking a Mare.

Breaking a Mare is an investigation of silence, goodness and girlhood. It invites readers into the barn, the sawdust mill, the rodeo arena. These poems expose the hard work women do on farms, the loss of rural landscapes and the role death can play in these spaces. They ask what it means to be good in the face of physical, emotional and ecological threat. Ultimately, these poems want to know what breaks us and what makes us stronger.

Christina Thatcher grew up between a farm and a ranch house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She won a Marshall Scholarship to undertake two MAs in the UK, after which she completed a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at Cardiff University, where she is now a Lecturer. Her poetry and short stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including Ambit, Butcher’s Dog, Magma, Poetry Wales, The North, The Poetry Review and more.

There will be a drinks reception in the Saugman Common Room following the poetry reading to which everyone is welcome.

If you’d like to attend, please register at:

www.stx.ox.ac.uk/event/breaking-a-mare
Date: 18 June 2025, 18:00
Venue: St Cross College, St Giles OX1 3LZ
Venue Details: St Cross Room
Speaker: Christina Thatcher (Cardiff University)
Organising department: St Cross College
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.stx.ox.ac.uk/event/breaking-a-mare
Cost: FREE
Audience: Public
Editor: Joanna Ashbourn