As we near both the end of Women’s History Month and the beginning of National Poetry Month, we thought it would be the perfect time to shine the spotlight onto one of our favourite, feminism-flaunting poets; Fredericton’s very own M. Travis Lane!

With over sixteen books and twelve awards under her belt (including the Lieutenant Governor’s Award), M. Travis Lane’s fifty-year career has proven to be an illustrious one, and she has rightfully earned her recognition as one of Canada’s greatest ever poets.

Take a look back at some of her finest moments, and the books of hers that we had the pleasure of publishing!

• October 18th, 2015: Governor General’s Award shortlist — M. Travis Lane’s collection, Crossover, earned her a spot on the 2015 Governor General’s Award shortlist.
• November 8th, 2016: Lieutenant Governor’s Award — M. Travis Lane was recognized for her high achievement in English literary arts, right as her latest work, The Witch of the Inner Wood, received critical acclaim.
• May 24th, 2017: Success at the New Brunswick Book Awards — M. Travis Lane took home the prize for poetry, again for her work The Witch of the Inner Woods.

• Reckonings (1988): Allusive, intricate, and technically ranging, while the abiding impulses of her work remain spiritually generous and affirmative.
• Temporary Shelter (1993): Celebrating the open against the enclosed, the wilderness against the city, the imagination against things tidily nailed down, the poems in this collection might best be seen as separate illuminations.
• The Witch of the Inner Wood (2016): Like the novella in fiction, the long poem is an oft-neglected form. Too long for publication in most literary journals and anthologies, too short to merit book-length publication, the long poem occupies a lonely space in literature. M. Travis Lane is a master of the form, in which her considerable poetic skills reach their apex.

Mortuary Figure at the Fogg Art Museum

There you are in stone
With your puppy dog,
A dead bird dangling from your hand.
I’m sorry. Only a little girl
And all of your life ahead of you.

Noisy, oh I am sure you were.
This disappointment was the first
Of many that never came to you.

In the lobby the potted lilies bloom,
austere designs. On the white tiled floor
muddy footprints. The fretful whine
of a bored child wriggling from a hand.
Too cross to kiss. Too cold.

— M. Travis Lane, Temporary Shelter, pg. 80