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About

Lauren Moseley is the author of the poetry collection Big Windows (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Orion magazine, the Poem-a-Day series from the Academy of American Poets, the Iowa Review, Electric Literature, Third CoastCopper Nickel, Southern Indiana Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Lauren has been a fellow at Yaddo and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a recipient of artist grants from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Photo by Tasha Thomas

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BIG WINDOWS

Available now.

In this stunning debut collection, Lauren Moseley’s poems move through real and imagined landscapes, navigating the borders between doubt, fear, wonder, and empowerment. Through the lens of the natural world, Moseley explores love, family, marriage, and self-knowledge, and never stops searching for the sacred. At once electric and contemplative, in a lyrical, spare style, the poems in Big Windows ultimately break down the boundaries between the self and the environment, between the physical and dream worlds, revealing the transcendent in the everyday.
 

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Carnegie Mellon University Press 

 

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PRAISE

Big Windows was included in Bustle's list of the "12 Most Anticipated Poetry Collections Hitting Bookstores in 2018."

“Moseley has crafted a sensual and provocative collection of poems that invites us to reevaluate the connection between our inner and outer worlds. Her debut, Big Windows, has surfaced at a time when humanity is confronting an onslaught of social unrest, political upheaval, and aesthetic bankruptcy that often distracts us from the ecstasy we might otherwise find by tuning into our immediate environment. Each poem in this collection is a progression through the stages of disillusionment, humility, wonder, and ultimately, enlightenment . . . Moseley shows us that in moments when our inner and outer worlds are in sync—when we perceive the extraordinary at work within the ordinary—we grab hold of heat and ice, Earth and sky at once. We can imagine the impossible—and also have it.” —The Bookends Review

"Moseley does not just consider the boundary between outside and inside. Her poems also explore divisions between dream life and reality, animals and humans, belief and doubt, bizarre encounters and everyday events . . . Big Windows recognizes the struggle wrapped up in boundaries, but reveals how poetry—with its blend of language, music, and imagery—can help us reimagine these divisions of human life." —Colorado Review

“Elegant and flawlessly crafted, Lauren Moseley's debut collection allows readers the charms of a perfectly framed view. But step beyond the glass and Moseley's multi-layered poems reveal themselves to be a little sharp and a little dangerous. 'You may find me wicked yet' she writes. And who doesn’t love beautifully wicked poems, humming as they do with the underground cities of wasps and the hoof beats of trampling horses? Readers, lift the sash of these lines to discover the extraordinary fullness of Lauren Moseley's depth of field.” —Kathryn Nuernberger

“Lauren Moseley is a keen, observant poet with a lyric gift for the music of poetry and a sense of narrative subtlety. The intense vision of Big Windows is clear from the first line of the first poem in the collection: ‘I am drawn to the window as if it were a fire.’ The transformations these poems accomplish are simply breathtaking. This is a fine, beautiful first book worthy of celebration.” —Stuart Dischell 

“Windows we look into, windows we look through, surreal in exactly the same way the perceived world is, Moseley’s beautiful poems startle us again and again to recognition, into the moment when ‘the plain present strikes [us] like an ax.’ They give us a series of views, and place us always in at least two places at once, in here and, transported by the poet’s vision and our own, beside ourselves and beyond.” —Katharine Coles

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SELECT POEMS PUBLISHED ONLINE

"Resurrection Biology," Orion magazine


Two poems,
 Electric Literature (2024)

Two poemsOn the Seawall

Two poems, Electric Literature (2020)

"Song for the Woolly Mammoth," Poets.org (originally featured in Poem-a-Day)

"Cyclops," Verse Daily

"Real," BOAAT

Five poems, Narrative magazine

Two poems, West Branch Wired

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OTHER PRESS

Essays, Interviews, News, and More

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NEWS! Orion magazine recently published my poem "Resurrection Biology" in their Spring 2024 issue (many thanks to Camille T. Dungy), and I have two poems forthcoming in Electric Literature in April 2024 ("Self-Portrait as Resurrection Fern" and "Slime Mold Exceptionalism"), with thanks to editor Kelly Luce!

April 4, 2022

My poem "Return of the Black-Browed Babbler" was a finalist for Third Coast's 2022 poetry contest.

The poem appeared in the Fall 2022 issue.

April 9, 2018

Essay posted on the Powell's blog:

"Naming and Renaming the World"

Some thoughts on nature, identity, sisterhood, and courage.

April 6, 2018

"Reading with . . ." Q&A in Shelf Awareness

The nice folks at Shelf Awareness let me talk about a few of my favorite books in the world. I hope you'll check out these recommended reads as well.

February 20, 2018

Interview on James Scott's podcast TK

I met novelist James Scott at Yaddo in 2016, and he kindly had me on his wonderful literary podcast. First he interviews the very talented Michael Nye, and I come on at minute 59 or so.

February 13, 2018

Essay posted on Largehearted Boy

In this Book Notes playlist, I wrote about ten songs that inspired or relate to Big Windows. Click above to read, or click here to listen to the playlist on Spotify.

CONTACT

I am available for interviews, readings, class visits, and other events. You may email me directly at:

mo [dot] lauren [at] gmail [dot] com

Alternatively, please feel free to contact me on social media or fill out the form below.

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