Some Say: Poems

by Maureen N. McLane

A dazzling collection of poems exploring the mental landscape of our moment

Maureen N. McLane’s Some Say revolves around a dazzling “old sun.” Here are poems on sex and death; here are poems testing the “bankrupt idea / of nature.” Some Say offers an erotics of attention; a mind roaming, registering, and intermittently blocked; a mortal poet going “nowhere fast but where / we’re all going.” From smartphones to dead gods to the beloved’s body, Some Say charts “the weather of an old day / suckerpunched” into the now.

Following on her bravura Mz the A Poem-in-Episodes , McLane bends lyric to the torque of our moment―and of any moment under the given sun. Some Say encompasses full-barreled odes and austere lines, whiplashing discourse and minimal notations. In her fifth book of poems, McLane continues her “songs of a season” even as she responds to new vibrations―political, geological, transpersonal, trans-specific. Moving through forests and cities, up mountains, across oceans, toward a common interior, she sounds out the ecological mesh of the animate and inanimate. These are poems that make tracks in our “unmarked dark” as the poet explores “a cosmos full / of people and black holes.” From its troubled, exhilarated dawns to its scanned night sky, Some Say is both a furthering and a summation by a poet scouring and singing the world “full // as it always was / of wings / of meaning and nothing.”

Genres: Poetry

132 pages, Hardcover

First published July 4, 2017

Reviews

[Aaron Anstett · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me the poems proceed irresistibly. I love the music/metrics, the whipsmart enjambments/hingeings, the echos between poems.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

McLane's style is very different than the other collections I've read this month, and I really liked that space to explore form and words. Some Say is a witty collection, several of the pieces left me with a smirk or a "hm" after reading. Sparse in style, but yet very playful. It is a great combination.

Some highlights:

For You
Enough
Balsam
Trail
Against the Promise of a View

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love McLane's ability to hold, in a single poem, cosmic worship and wonder, confounding desire and want, a humbling of human voracity, and a playful, piercing precision. In this collection, I was especially struck by "Hinge," with its sonic echoes that suggest both loss and endurance, and by "Tips for Survival," with its ruthlessly practical advice:

In the Arctic wear only 100% wool.
Sleep in snow caves not tents.

Take a pole on a glacier.
It will help if a crevasse.

In polar bear country sleep in the center
of the ring your dogs make.
The bear will be less hungry when.

Don't date flyboys.
Carry blister tape.

Antibiotics. Antibiotics.

If a giraffe is staring at anything
but you, run.

Make eye contact
on the subway
only if.

Always have three plans.

Don't fuck people
who don't read.

Accept no gift
unless you want that relationship.

Need it. That ship will carry you.
There will never be enough time

or later. Now now now now now.

[Jean Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

On a beautiful afternoon, preferably late summer, sit in the sun, when the light has softened. Then read Maureen McLean’s Some Say, her most recent book of poetry. Some may say there is nothing new under the sun, but everything that falls within Ms. McLean’s purview is new: destruction and renewal, life and death, and hope. “Notationals/Songs of a Season III” exhibits all of these. The poem begins “a gull with a shattered wing/ended the spring.” And ends, “after a storm/even you must concede/the birds again sing.” In her poem, “Some Say,” classic poetic imagery (“a host of horsemen,” “a horizon of ships under sail,” and “a mountain embraced by the clouds”) is simultaneous with “bad-ass booty-shakin’ shorties.” There is such respect in these pages for the magic and power of words that in “Tips for Survival” we are told, “Don’t fuck people/who don’t read.” Ms. McLean’s epigraph is “not a symbol/but a sample/a living piece/the mortal sun.” Everything in these pages happens under the watchful eye of that mortal sun. I read Some Say the day after the solar eclipse, and in her closing offering, “Envoi: Eclipse,” she writes, “I don’t trust myself/not to look.” Indeed. Here is someone who could look and see and tell what wondrous things there are yet to light up the world after darkness.

[Haja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not McLane quickly becoming one of my favorite poets. It’s the style-forward, self aware poems for meeeeee

As she writes in her envoi:

“I don’t trust myself
not to look.”

Faves:

One Canoe
Yo
Rabbits
Fairway loop

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Goodreads and wanted to say a few words about it.

I liked the balance of these poems. The images were well-formed and the author's short poems arouse a wealth of associations, creating connections between ideas one might not expect. This was both the most fruitful and the most challenging aspects of the book for me. I didn't quite follow the threads of some poems. The thematic consistency risked some predictability in the tone of some poems. Overall I am glad I read this book, and the poems cohered together well. Well-paced, creative, great language - would recommend

[Mindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful. Favorites included Tips for Survival; Balsam; Real Time; Night Sky. Covered a vast number of topics: nature, politics, relationships, society, technology. It’s always hard for me to review poetry because I don’t feel like a master wordsmith and poets do come close to that distinction most of the time, but this collection made me feel. That’s all I want from poetry. To have my brain tingle with emotion and feel pensive.

[Robert Pierson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this at the dollar store and to be honest I think I might’ve over paid these are some of the worst blandest Instagram poems I have ever read they have unnecessarily linebreaks this is some of the most boring as dull thing I think I’ve read this is a prime example of why I really am starting to not like modern poetry

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

radiant & full of wonder

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry like art is very personal and I found I just couldn’t get into the right space to relate to it.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

More poetry
from The Dollar Tree.

[Madman Reads & Rocks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting style. Succinct yet verbose.

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got 25 % in and just could not it's what the hell

[GW · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice and thoughtful poetry. She spoke to the audience like a fellow life traveler/ I recommend this book for anyone who wants to see life as being on the sunny side of life with a positive outlook