Caroline Goodwin is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, teacher, and collage artist. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, she moved to California in 1999 to attend Stanford as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry. Her work investigates themes of trauma survival and healing. 

Praise for Matanuska

“Caroline Goodwin's Matanuska is good for what ails you, from snow-blindness to work-worn hands to the heaviness of grief. Each poem in this remarkable collection begins with the name of a plant, as well as the Covid-related death toll on the day the poem was composed. With the pandemic as a subtle backdrop, these poems search the natural world for nourishment, sustenance, protection, and healing.

One can't help but feel hope when reading these poems. There is an underlying reverence for Mother Nature, and a trust that Life cycles toward the good. Caroline proves herself to be part magician, part naturalist, part lover, part witch-and entirely human - along the banks of the Matanuska River. Each poem ‘once more, with feeling: improves digestion and general well-being.’”

– Sarah Kobrinsky

“This is a delicious, disturbing, and deliciously disturbing poetic sequence, that takes its name from the Matanuska river in south-central Alaska where Caroline Goodwin spent her childhood. Matanuska eschews sentimentality even as it champions sentiment, its melée of different threads encouraging the reader to work for sense (and senses) while relishing its sonic and paratactical dance, a dance which is often mesmerising. It is precisely in not pulling its punches and in refusing to wallow in doom or bien-pensant piety either - by being monitory without being judgemental - that Caroline Goodwin manages to create the space for poetic invention. As for me, it’s simply one of the best collections I've read this year, and one I know I'll be returning to.”

– John Goodby