Merida Faculty - January 2009:  Maureen Owen

Photo by Kyran Owen-Mankovich

Maureen Owen is the author of ten books of poetry:
Erosion's Pull, Coffee House Press (2006), a Colorado Book Award and Balcones Poetry Prize finalist
American Rush: Selected Poems, Talisman House, Pub. (1998), a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist
Untapped Maps, Potes & Poets Press (1993)
Imaginary Income, Hanging Loose Press (1992)
Amelia Earhart, Vortex Editions (1984), an American Book Award winner
Zombie Notes, Sun Press (1984)
Hearts in Space, Kulchur Press (1980)
A brass choir approaches the burial ground, Big Deal (1977)
The No-Travels Journal, Cherry Valley Editions (1975)
Country Rush, Adventures in Poetry

Maureen Owen's poetry is included in the following journals and anthologies:
On Turtle's Back, edited by Dennis Maloney, White Pine Press
New World Journal #5, edited by Bob CallahanAn Gael: Facsimile, edited by Kevin McEneaney
Goodbye to the 20th Century, edited by Andrei Codrescu and Laura Rosenthal, Four Walls Eight Windows
Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970, edited by Andrei Codrescu, Four Walls Eight Windows
Postmodern American Poetry, Norton, edited by Paul Hoover
Ladies, Start Your Engines: women writers on cars and the road, edited by Elinor Nauen, Faber & Faber
Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing By Women, from Talisman, edited by Mary Margaret Sloan
Real Things: An Anthology of Popular Culture in American Poetry, edited by Jim Elledge and Susan Swartwout, 
   Indiana Univ. Press
Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, Maureen Owen Issue, Winter-Spring 2001
Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson,
   edited by Sheila Coghill and Thom Tammaro, University of Iowa Press
The Brink: An Anthology of Postmodern Poetry 1965 to the Present, edited by Noah Hoffenberg, Yeti Books
Talking to the Sun, Selected and Introduced by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell,
   The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1985
The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood, edited by Patricia Dienstfrey and Brenda
   Hillman, Wesleyan University Press

She edited Telephone Books and Telephone magazine through thirty titles of the press and nineteen issues of the magazine to date. She has worked at The St. Mark's Poetry Project in Manhattan, NY and served on the Board of Directors of The Poetry Project and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines - both as a member and as a Vice-Chairperson.

Maureen Owen has received a Poetry Fellowship from the NEA and has served on several state arts poetry awards panels. She was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc. in 1999. Her title, Amelia Earhart, won a Before Columbus American Book Award for Poetry. Her Selected Poems, American Rush, was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize in April, 1999.  Maureen can be heard on Rebel Poets/Worlds Made Flesh from Maya Revolutionary.

Maureen has taught a number of writing workshops, including, several at The St. Mark's Poetry Project and at St. Joseph's College in Hartford, CT.  She was previously adjunct, full professor of Creative Writing at Edinboro University, Edinboro, Pennsylvania. She is a faculty member for Naropa University's Summer Writing Program. She has also been an External Examiner for Swarthmore's Honors Program. She has also served as Program Coordinator at The St. Mark's Poetry Project.