Critical Commentary
Praise for Maureen Owen
“[Owen] has one of the most highly developed senses of humor of any poet now writing.”—American Book Review
“There is no more American writer than the cosmopolite Ms. Owen.”—Galatea Resurrects
“No one writes quite like Maureen Owen but a bunch probably want to.”—Bob Arnold, Longhouse Woodburners We Recommend
“Astonishing things quietly occur.” —Paul Hoover
“Her exuberant style and tremendous energy shine in her strongly feminist works. ”—Andrei Codrescu
On Erosion’s Pull
“A book of dream-like urgency, easily read in one sitting, full of unexpected similes and metaphors . . . Owen’s long-lined poems convey sharp-witted realism mingled with openhearted curiosity about nature, love, and loss.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Few poets examine American family life, feminism, art history, and the natural world with an underlying awareness and understanding of both Eastern and Western spirituality and thought . . . And even in a volume full of complicated phrasing and erudite moments, she can also offer that most wondrous of poet’s gifts, the lyric.”—BOMB
“A terrific collection of poems . . . The only problem with [Erosion’s Pull] is picking a favorite.”—Santa Cruz Sentinel
“Daring and agile . . . with characteristic humor, self-deprecation, and delicacy, Owen tracks the comings and goings of the world.”—Rain Taxi
“In Erosion’s Pull, Owen truly is at the top of her game. All her imagination’s magic is at her command. She can wax lyrical, switch rhythms on a dime, and rock and roll all night. The Waltz, the Lindy Hop, did you say the Watusi?—all one to her.”—Galatea Resurrects
“The geological thrust of this selection’s title can just as well be applied to the structure of the poems. The successive lines construed as strata, the linear arrangement as a mineral vein, interrupted by happenstance or some overarching organization that yields not only a surface meaning but indicates a deep history folded in on itself to create something new, something revelatory, something solid.” —Poetry Flash
“Maureen Owen is a volcanic poet. . . . Her volcanic tendencies are not haphazard or random; instead each poem is steadily structured and reasoned so as to remain in one place, focused on one image, until the image either disappears, revolts, or falls off the bottom of the page like molten lava. . . . Indeed, this a mature and dangerous writing. Watch out for the eruption.”—Altar Magazine
“[Owen] create[s] glimpses of womanhood, artisthood, and humanhood deserving of careful attention.”—Poetry Project Newsletter
“No one writes quite like Maureen Owen but a bunch probably want to—there’s none of that stuffy and shedding femininity and playing the poet part . . . Her poetry has great fun to it, sensibly balanced, and it’s interesting. Her short poems cut an angle groove from the long poems and you feel a texture of music and language love.”—Longhouse, Publishers & Booksellers
“In Erosion’s Pull, Maureen Owen
epitomizes quantum poetics
or
being in 67 places at one time
or
The Atomizer” —Bernadette Mayer
“In Maureen Owen’s perfectly titled Erosion’s Pull, words and lines map, unmap, and revamp our everyday postcontemporary geographies: ironies and ambiguities, surrealistic conundrums, kaleidoscopic comedies, puzzlements, certain and uncertain loves and losses.”—Susan Howe
“‘Reality is the last word in illusionism’ in this poetry ‘in constant hypothesis,’ where the Virgin becomes a suspect and a way of rhythm leads us into the ‘wounded day.’ A quest for self knowledge so deep it hurts with beauty. ‘What shape rhapsody’ she asks and her images unfold like rain in ‘beaded torrents.’ Truth is ‘brok en’ in, in a process un-poetic enough for her to make poetry of it.”—Cecilia Vicuña
On previous collections
“Exhilarating, pratfall funny and kick-ass sharp. . . . The manic, high-speed quality one hears in some of these poems lends them instantaneous presence, a being-there which guides the reader over the chasm of the non sequiturs, the quasi-surrealist constructs and the sundry private codes of the New York School.”—Literary Quarterly (on American Rush)
“If you’ve forgotten why you like poetry, pick up Maureen Owen’s American Rush. What’s here? Raising kids, love gone sour, clothes and food and the condition of women, literature, Japanese and Chinese poets, driving around, the prairie, her daily life, Blake, hugs, birds. Fresh from beginning to end.”—Poetry Project Newsletter (on American Rush)
“Owen’s strengths are obvious from the very first reading. Depth and clarity of expression, swiftness of verse, effortless, confident lyricism, honesty of emotion (not sentiment) and perception all qualify the poems of Imaginary Income. . . . She can be compared to Bonnie Raitt . . . a distinctive voice well worth hearing.”—American Book Review (on Imaginary Income)
