Maureen N. McLane

Maureen N. McLane teaches at NYU. Her most recent book of poems is What You Want.

Poem: ‘Rocks’

Maureen N. McLane, 4 January 2024

The rocks individuated as peopleif you register peopleas individuals, which I do,haplessly, helplessly, when forced,fright or flight or love or _______.

The plants need water.The rhododendrons are drooping.Your lust for the contemporaryis understandable but mildly disappointing.

She made me a latte,today’s small gift.They must be annoyed, the onesliving now next to a construction site.

Poem: ‘From a Book of Hours’

Maureen N. McLane, 18 May 2023

For Anne-Lise François

For you I got up to see the moon.Say it was 4 a.m.Say then it was 8.30ish.These are not natural hoursbut hours of a kind, my little book of,a little digital scannable book.A telepathy toward.I know you feelwhat there is to feeland oh movement.Say it was a kind of moon              near half....

Trees are complicated: H.D. casts a spell

Maureen N. McLane, 2 February 2023

She travels to Greece on a boat with Havelock Ellis, finds herself in Egypt just when King Tut’s tomb is opened, gets photographed by Man Ray, has sherry with Elizabeth Bowen, runs into Arthur Waley at Iseult Gonne’s, becomes Freud’s analysand in 1933, reads her poetry before the future Queen Elizabeth II during the Second World War. One wonders why there has been no biopic, or at least a mini-series. (Please, no one do this.)

Poem: ‘Magpie’

Maureen N. McLane, 5 January 2023

The magpie came back to the courtyard & its deep chill the magpie was a jay was a jackdaw was a bird in Germany if not a German bird. Whither the Carolingians and their monks whose recipes called for cinnamon from the Far East? You say cinnamon, I say cassia, though we’ve never between us tasted the famously fragrant spice Cinnamomum zeylanicum, nor the aromatic bark qirfah which...

Poem: ‘Equinox’

Maureen N. McLane, 20 October 2022

bees riddle the astersor are they daisieshave you a thoughtor a pansy for me

the lenticelsof cherry treeshave cracked opento a deeper barkcould your skinnot open all alongthe seam of autumn

there’s a gashin the mindan old slippinginto a reservoiryes/no        yes/nofrog splash

along the bus routea hinge of wingsbutterfly thoraxof the breathing possibleyes/noyes/no

bees...

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