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Mapmaking: poems
"A profound meditation on the permeability of past and present, nature and artifice, self and other, space and time, Mapmaking is a miracle of invention." --Alice Fulton
Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry
The poems in Mapmaking, Megan Harlan's first poetry collection, span settings from contemporary Manhattan to prewar Paris, from the Arabian desert to the California coast, to explore the creative nature of place -- how people navigate the deeper landscapes of love and loss, home and dislocation, memory and imagination.
Mapmaking, won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by poet and translator Sidney Wade, who writes, "The poems in this book exhibit the poet's great attention to and skill with form, sound, and language. The poems are constantly surprising, taking us to the far corners of the poet's metaphorical maps, and, in her words, 'gesturing us to go further.' This is imaginative writing at its very best--visual, aural, metaphorical, ethical, and adventurous. The poet constructs genuinely new topographies for us that offer significant and original inroads into our understanding of what it means to be human."
Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry
The poems in Mapmaking, Megan Harlan's first poetry collection, span settings from contemporary Manhattan to prewar Paris, from the Arabian desert to the California coast, to explore the creative nature of place -- how people navigate the deeper landscapes of love and loss, home and dislocation, memory and imagination.
Mapmaking, won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by poet and translator Sidney Wade, who writes, "The poems in this book exhibit the poet's great attention to and skill with form, sound, and language. The poems are constantly surprising, taking us to the far corners of the poet's metaphorical maps, and, in her words, 'gesturing us to go further.' This is imaginative writing at its very best--visual, aural, metaphorical, ethical, and adventurous. The poet constructs genuinely new topographies for us that offer significant and original inroads into our understanding of what it means to be human."
- GenresPoetry
66 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2010
10 people want to read
About the author
Megan Harlan
2 books63 followersMegan Harlan is an award-winning essayist, poet, and author of two books. Her memoir in essays, MOBILE HOME (University of Georgia Press, 2020), won the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction and was critically acclaimed in The New York Times, Kirkus, Booklist, and elsewhere. Her poetry collection, MAPMAKING (BkMk Press/New Letters, 2010) won the John Ciardi Prize and was called "a miracle of invention" by Alice Fulton. Her writing has been cited as distinguished in Best American Essays 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2023, awarded the Arts & Letters Prize for Creative Nonfiction, and featured in AGNI, The New York Times, Crazyhorse, Hotel Amerika, River Teeth, Colorado Review, and American Poetry Review. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brittany, France.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 11, 2020
These are beautiful, explorative poems that take on locational subjects -- like maps, travel to places around the globe, daily life in cities like New York -- with a lyrical, insightful, playful voice and often a metaphysical perspective. One of my favorite poems is "Farsickness," based on a German word that means "the opposite of homesickness," and which Harlan opens with these lines: "Imagine a love turned out / as bread best cast / to the rivers, feedings / for smaller, far-flung things..." In several poems, Harlan writes about mourning the death of a loved one using innovative yet immediate metaphors: "Imagine my loss of you as a city. / For years I wandered its streets -- / through perplexing districts / of diamonds, gargoyles, and bodegas / of dive bars, operas, resurrections." (Lines from the poem, "Inhabited.") I read Mapmaking for a poetry writing seminar, and its poems have stayed with me and inspired some writing of my own.
January 13, 2021
Luminous and inventive poems. A quicksilver effect to the writing, so you don't see the impact coming. "Nativity," "Living Cloisters," "Ex Libiris" and "Farsickness" are amazing. Most of these poems have been published in some of the best journals in the country, which is interesting for me as a poet submitting work (the ones I mentioned were published in American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Agni and Triquarterly). 5 stars.
February 8, 2020
I prefer metaphors to be identified. They don't need to be spelled out extensively, but some hint letting the reader know what is being described is basic courtesy. Otherwise, a poet is telling inside jokes without explaining the necessary background information.
The majority of Harlan's poems in this collection are clear enough, and several are also truly superb. But several are obscure, leaving the reader guessing what she is talking about. Is the analogy apt? Since we have no idea what it's an analogy to, we have no way of knowing. Further, there is nothing for us to relate to. Readers cannot respond to such poems by saying, "This resonates with me" or "I've had this experience, too!" Readers miss the joy of reading a phrase both beautiful in its language AND apt in its description.
That said, when Harlan's subject is clear, she is at worst a competent poet, and often a joy to read.
The majority of Harlan's poems in this collection are clear enough, and several are also truly superb. But several are obscure, leaving the reader guessing what she is talking about. Is the analogy apt? Since we have no idea what it's an analogy to, we have no way of knowing. Further, there is nothing for us to relate to. Readers cannot respond to such poems by saying, "This resonates with me" or "I've had this experience, too!" Readers miss the joy of reading a phrase both beautiful in its language AND apt in its description.
That said, when Harlan's subject is clear, she is at worst a competent poet, and often a joy to read.
October 18, 2016
I had to review this book for a class (undergrad, junior), so the following is actually the review I wrote for that purpose. Yes, it's a little bit bullsh*t, but hey, I actually did like the poems!
Although Mapmaking is only Megan Harlan’s first volume of poetry, the verses found inside resound with a deep, timeless feel. Her carefully chosen words speak to the readers, evoking feelings of both homesickness and wanderlust. It’s no small wonder that her work was chosen as the winner of the John Ciardi Prize for poetry. Her poems are simultaneously simple and complex, stark and beautiful.
The majority of Harlan’s poetry found here deals with the topic of place; that is, location. It’s about how we feel about different places in our lives, what they make us experience and remember. She explores many different places through her poetry. Some of them, like “California” and “Museum of Natural History” talk about real places and what is waiting to be found there. Others delve into the subject of imagined locations. For example, “Motel Limbo” discusses the afterlife, cleverly turning that in-between state of limbo or purgatory, whatever you want to call it, into a seedy motel that has “machines with unlimited ice.”
Refusing to limit herself to imagining only places, Harlan at times also imagines the traveler. “The Marvelous Plague” details the spread of a dangerous illness throughout a population: “It moves through breeze, breath, airborne/It moves through dream, blood, darkness.” By the end of the poem, there is no one left to infect and the virus finally “dies down.” However, like any decent poet, Harlan has also left readers with a double meaning: the poem could easily represent the wildfire spread of an idea or a trend.
While it is true that some of the poems deal with rather difficult topics (For example, “The World” discusses the death of the speaker’s father.), all of the poems have a gentle, calm feel to them, somewhat reminiscent of Robert Frost. Reading them is like eating comfort food – a big piece of chocolate cake or a plate of fried chicken.
Some of Harlan’s poems even span across time: “Atget’s Paris” describes the title city as it was just before World War II.
One of my favorite poems in the collection was “Farsickness.” It is based on the German word fernweh, which Harlan loosely translates as “the opposite of homesickness.” Although the poem is short – only sixteen lines – it perfectly captures that overwhelming, stifling feeling of being trapped in one place and yearning for more. It gives one of sense of claustrophobia, but at the same time there is a feeling that something bigger is burgeoning, hovering just over the horizon and waiting to make itself known.
With Mapmaking, Megan Harlan has certainly made herself known to readers. I was thoroughly impressed by her verses and I am certain that others will be as well. Her poems may be short and simple, but the themes that they tackle are universal, and not exactly what one might call easy. They speak to the reader in the same way that only a long-forgotten memory of a childhood hiding spot does. I can only hope that there will be more to come from this impressively insightful first-time author.
Although Mapmaking is only Megan Harlan’s first volume of poetry, the verses found inside resound with a deep, timeless feel. Her carefully chosen words speak to the readers, evoking feelings of both homesickness and wanderlust. It’s no small wonder that her work was chosen as the winner of the John Ciardi Prize for poetry. Her poems are simultaneously simple and complex, stark and beautiful.
The majority of Harlan’s poetry found here deals with the topic of place; that is, location. It’s about how we feel about different places in our lives, what they make us experience and remember. She explores many different places through her poetry. Some of them, like “California” and “Museum of Natural History” talk about real places and what is waiting to be found there. Others delve into the subject of imagined locations. For example, “Motel Limbo” discusses the afterlife, cleverly turning that in-between state of limbo or purgatory, whatever you want to call it, into a seedy motel that has “machines with unlimited ice.”
Refusing to limit herself to imagining only places, Harlan at times also imagines the traveler. “The Marvelous Plague” details the spread of a dangerous illness throughout a population: “It moves through breeze, breath, airborne/It moves through dream, blood, darkness.” By the end of the poem, there is no one left to infect and the virus finally “dies down.” However, like any decent poet, Harlan has also left readers with a double meaning: the poem could easily represent the wildfire spread of an idea or a trend.
While it is true that some of the poems deal with rather difficult topics (For example, “The World” discusses the death of the speaker’s father.), all of the poems have a gentle, calm feel to them, somewhat reminiscent of Robert Frost. Reading them is like eating comfort food – a big piece of chocolate cake or a plate of fried chicken.
Some of Harlan’s poems even span across time: “Atget’s Paris” describes the title city as it was just before World War II.
One of my favorite poems in the collection was “Farsickness.” It is based on the German word fernweh, which Harlan loosely translates as “the opposite of homesickness.” Although the poem is short – only sixteen lines – it perfectly captures that overwhelming, stifling feeling of being trapped in one place and yearning for more. It gives one of sense of claustrophobia, but at the same time there is a feeling that something bigger is burgeoning, hovering just over the horizon and waiting to make itself known.
With Mapmaking, Megan Harlan has certainly made herself known to readers. I was thoroughly impressed by her verses and I am certain that others will be as well. Her poems may be short and simple, but the themes that they tackle are universal, and not exactly what one might call easy. They speak to the reader in the same way that only a long-forgotten memory of a childhood hiding spot does. I can only hope that there will be more to come from this impressively insightful first-time author.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews