Poetry Friday: A Poet to Know--Maureen N. McLane

I don't know about you, but when I discover a new poet, I get so excited. By "new," of course, I mean new to me. It's just so fun to read a great poem and then dig into a little internet searching to find another and another of their gems. And then maybe dial up the library or bookstore to request anything and everything they've published.

Here's someone I found today, Maureen McLane. I just had to share some of her stuff in honor of the first Poetry Friday of my mostest favorite month, November.

Check out this beauty:

Populating Heaven
by Maureen N. McLane
If we belonged to the dead, if we had our own Egyptian culture of care— the amulets of home entombed for solace everywhere— would we then have found a better way to cast beyond the merely given earth? If you want to follow me you'd better leave your plaid suitcase and makeup kit behind. I hope you won't mind the narrow corridor; the air in the chamber's thinned out. In this dark I think my life's an old hinge creaking in silence. Open the door and you'll see the creatures I imagined while you were waiting: the green-eyed dog upright on his throne, the winged lion, the woman whose third eye brightens the room.

You can read the rest here. It's written in such clear language. And it says so much.

And this next one appealed to me in the same way. I'm in a new position at my school as an instructional coach this year, so I'm out of the classroom...hardest part about this? Not getting to teach poetry. I would love to teach this poem and have students write their own "What I'm Looking For" poem:

What I'm Looking For
by Maureen N. McLane
What I'm looking for is an unmarked door we'll walk through and there: whatever we'd wished for beyond the door. What I'm looking for is a golden bowl carefully repaired a complete world sealed along cracked lines. What I'm looking for may not be there. What you're looking for may or may not be me.

The rest of this poem is here.

If you like these two and you enjoy a good love poem (and even though I say I am not a love poem fan, poems like this one make me change my mind) you will really like "Syntax."

Thanks for enjoying the poetry of Maureen N. McLane with me. Be sure to check out the rest of the Poetry Friday lineup today at Mainely Write (best blog title ever???).