Raised in upstate New York, Maureen N. McLane is the author of seven previous books of poetry, including This Blue (2014), a finalist for the National Book Award, and Some Say (2017); What I'm Looking For- Selected Poems 2005-2017 was published by Penguin Books in 2019. Her book My Poets, a hybrid of memoir and criticism, was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Oxford and the University of Chicago, and teaches poetry and poetics at New York University.