About the Author, Caroline MaunThe Sleeping, with two of its poems having been nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize, is the first book of poetry by Caroline Maun. She is also the editor of The Collected Poems of Evelyn Scott (National Poetry Foundation, 2005). She received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1998. She was an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at Morgan State University from 1998-2004. While at Morgan State, she served as founding Writing Center director and co-coordinator of freshman composition. She has also served on the executive committee and as treasurer of the Middle Atlantic Writers Association. Since 2004, she has been an assistant professor of critical literacies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University. Recently, she was named one of two recipients of WSU’s Academy of Scholars Junior Faculty Award for 2006. She lives in Grosse Pointe Park.
Reviews“Caroline Maun’s The Sleeping is a compelling and intimate exploration of the self. In language that is at the same time sophisticated and coherent, Maun offers startling images of her body as it is acted upon by the doctor, the rapist, the lover. In other poems the poet bears witness to terrifying narratives —the cicadas who return every seventeen years only to emerge and to die. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the volume is Maun’s ability to recall private places and through them create universal images of childhood, sexuality, and death.” — Mary Jane Lupton, Author of Menstruation and Psychoanalysis The Sleeping: Professionally, I've known Caroline Maun for several years; maybe five years, as long as there has been a ChickenBones. The first poem she shared with me and that I posted on our website is Faceless, a poem about a lynching, inspired by a postcard. It was a good poem, well executed with the right sympathy and perspective, the right tragic irony. I did not think much of her outside of that. I knew she was a professor at Morgan State University (MSU). I saw her numerous times at conferences sponsored by literary societies based at MSU. And I saw her more frequently when I became a member of Mid-Atlantic Writers Association (MAWA). I had lunch with her once in Charles Village at an outside cafe when she was planning a website for MAWA. At that time, I believe she was also up for tenure; she had been at Morgan for almost six years (1998-2004).
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