Maureen McLane (born December 24, 1967) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

, critic, and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

. She received the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(where she was a Rhodes Scholar), and

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. She is the author of four books of poetry, including ''This Blue''. ''My Poets'' (FSG, 2012), a hybrid of memoir and criticism, was a finalist for the 2012

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

and poetry editor at ''Grey''. She is currently professor of English at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Reception and influence

McLane's first full-length poetry collection (''Same Life: poems'',

Farrar, Straus & Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...

, 2008) was a finalist for the

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

and The Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Award. It was named as one of the

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

Literary Editor's Best Books. Her follow-up book, ''World Enough: poems'' (

, 2010), was selected by

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University P ...

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

as a best poetry book of the year. McLane achieved literary celebrity with the publication of her hybrid criticism-biography ''My Poets'', which

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phil ...

editor

Lorin Stein Lorin Hollister Stein (born April 22, 1973) is an American critic, editor, and translator. He was the editor in chief of '' The Paris Review''Dave Itzkoff (March 5, 2010)"Paris Review Names New Editor" ArtsBeat, '' The New York Times''. but resi ...

called "the survey course of my dreams." ''My Poets'' was lauded in

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

Bookforum ''Bookforum'' is an American book review magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature that was based in New York City, New York. The magazine was founded in 1994 and announced in December of 2022 it would cease publishing after 2 ...

, New York Observer,

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

, and elsewhere for its groundbreaking hybridity. Writing in

Parul Sehgal Parul Sehgal is an American literary critic based in New York, who publishes primarily in American venues. She is a former senior editor and columnist at ''The New York Times Book Review'', and was one of the team of book critics at ''The New Y ...

remarked that "To read McLane is to be reminded that the brain may be an organ, but the mind is a muscle. Hers is a roving, amphibious intelligence; she's at home in the essay and the fragment, the polemic and the elegy."

Awards

* National Book Critics Circle 2012 Finalist in Autobiography * Golden Dozen Award, New York University College of Arts and Sciences Teaching Award, 2012 * New York University Humanities Institute, Faculty Award for Publishing the Most Books in 2008 *

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Committee on Undergraduate Education, 2006 * John Clive Teaching Award in History and Literature, Harvard University, 2005 *

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics C ...

Nona Balakian Award for Excellence in Book Reviewing, 2003

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

* * * * *McLane, Maureen N. (2017). ''Some Say: poems''. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. *McLane, Maureen N. (2019). ''What I'm Looking For: selected poems 2005-2017''. Penguin. *McLane: Maureen N. (2021). ''More Anon: Selected Poems.'' Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

List of poems

Non-fiction

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McLane, Maureen 1967 births Living people American literary critics American women literary critics Harvard University alumni New York University faculty The New Yorker people American Rhodes Scholars University of Chicago alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford 21st-century American poets