Maureen Alsop, Ph.D. is the author of Arbor VitaeTender to Empress; Pyre; Later, Knives & Trees; Mirror Inside Coffin; Mantic; Apparition Wren (also a Spanish Edition, Reyezuelo Aparición, translated by Mario Domínguez Parra); and several chapbooks including Sweetwater Ardour; Nightingale Habit; and the dream and the dream you spoke.

She is the winner of the Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award through the Hawaii Council for the Humanities, Harpur Palate's Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry, The Bitter Oleander’s Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award, among others. Her poetry was shortlisted for Montreal International Poetry Prize, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize on numerous occasions.

Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Laurel Review, AGNI, Blackbird, Tampa Review, DIAGRAM, Action Yes, Drunken Boat, Memorious, The Kenyon Review, Typo Magazine and featured on Verse Daily.

Her translations of the poetry of Juana de Ibarbourou (Uruguay, 1892-1979) are found through Poetry Salzburg Review.

She teaches online with the Poetry Barn. She is a Book Review Editor and Associate Poetry Editor at Poemeleon. She holds a MFA from Vermont College.


Consultations, Workshops, Editing

Maureen is available for workshops, teaching, consultation and mentorship regarding writing and visual poetry. She is experienced with editorial support for manuscripts, feedback on poetry, and she works with individuals in generating creative projects. Maureen will work to your preferences. She also works through programs offered at AIM Higher and The Poetry Barn.  Workshops facilitated through via Poetry Barn are posted annually and have included topics such as self portrayal, elegy, meditations, and collaborations. 

Please feel free to contact Maureen here.


“The voice in Maureen’s poety is a total Glenda good witch only more fun and cozier, like a Glenda who puts her fairytale feet up on the furniture… her poetry also seems to emanate a magic ritual energy with resonant symbol images of prophesy or prayer but, like the best mystical poetry, without the sort of exclusionary energy of a specific spirituality or system of belief. It’s an intuition, an animal buzz innate in human experience…In her work, there’s a homology between walking in nature and moving through language.”

Jared White

“Incantatory, mesmerizing, quiet – as in the unfearful glade of death, the Bardo – Maureen Alsop’s poems commune with the dead and their afterlives. She brings their whispers, lies, and secrets back to us, and that transfer is her music. I had the privilege of entering that state of mesmer by taking a writing workshop she held at dusk in Autumn, at the Salton Sea: and indeed, she brought about a communion with the ancestors. …”

Mary Fitzpatrick

Maureen also works in private practice as a psychologist. For further information regarding services contact Mandala Psychology Services.