Maryanne Hannan

NEWSVery pleased to have a reflection from the Georgetown Global Dialogue conference published in TODAY’S AMERICAN CATHOLIC, “Found in Translation,” June 26, 2025Looking forward to attending a Zoom event sponsored by the National Book Critics Circle on A Conversation on Poetry Criticism, with poetry critics Stephanie Burt, Anahid Nersessian, and David Orr on June 26, 2025.Very pleased to have my poem, "Hearing the Call to Rebuild My Church" in US CATHOLIC, July 2025 issue, devoted to celebrating the Papacy of Franciscus 1936 - 2025.Looking forward to Livestream attendance at Georgetown Global Dialogues: Human Fraternity in a Divided World: Writers Engage the Legacy of Pope Francis, to be held in Rome, June 9-10, 2025.

RECENT POEMS

2025"Hearing the Call to Rebuild My Church" In US CATHOLIC, JULY 2025.“What If It’s True: A Palindrome of Wild Hope” in SLANT: A Journal of Poetry, May 15, 2025“In the Shadow of Eternity” in Amethyst Review, April 17, 2025“Weather Forecasting,” in Amethyst Review, March 3, 2025
----2024“Conversation at Sunday Brunch” in SLANT: A Journal of Poetry, Fall 2024“We Never Know What We Already Know: an etymological examen” in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, edited by Sarah Law, Amethyst Publishing.“Analysis: Cost Benefit Ratio of Grief” in The WINDHOVER, 28:2, 2024“Why I Can Now Stay Churched” in Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry 2024“On Reading Les Murray Died Four Years Ago” in Quadrant, Vol. LXVIII, Number 4, No. 605. Also online, Quadrant“Walking to Noon Mass” in The WINDHOVER, 28.1, 2024
---2023“Waiting for Change in the Moral Arc of the Universe with a Nod to Martin Luther King,” in SLANT, A Journal of Poetry, Volume 37.2, Fall 2023“Wherefore” and “Howsoever” in All Shall Be Well: An Anthology of New Poems for Julian of Norwich, edited by Sarah Law, Amethyst Press, 2023“Some Avian Advice” in SLANT: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 37:1, Spring 2023“An Accurate Account of the Ineffable” in Amethyst Review, April 16, 2023“Let It End” in Still Point Arts Quarterly, Issue No. 49, Spring 2023“like sparks among the stubble” in The WINDHOVER, 27.1, 2023
--2022“One Last Leap” in Bearings Online: Collegeville Institute, December 14, 2022“The Aughts: A History” in SLANT: A Journal of Poetry, Vol. 36.3, Fall 2022“Ode to Siliphion” in New Verse News, October 8, 2022“The Last Day” in Naugatuck River Review, Summer/Fall 2022“Holy Host of Inquiries” in Xavier Review, Volume 41, Issues 1 & 2“Fracking” in Gargoyle #76, CD (reading)“Aubade to April” in Gargoyle #75, 2022“Shared Divinity” in Amethyst Review, April 16, 2022“All Done with the Grieving” in The Windhover 26:1, 2022“Seek and You Shall Find,” “Courage: A Study of Context,” “Sprung Self” in The Jesuits: Finding God in All Things edited by Desmond Kon and Eric Valles, Squircle Line Press“Eternity: How to Make It Work for You” in The Curator Magazine, March 4, 2022
---2021“Whack-a-Mole for Grownups” in Spillway 29“Quanta, Quanta, Quanta,” “Mysterium Tremendum,” “The Nostalgia Which Seizes Us” in A Given Grace: An Anthology of Christian Poems, edited by Desmond Kon and Eric Valles, Squircle Line Press“In Praise of the Light” online at Poems for Ephesians; McMaster Divinity College, November 3, 2021“What I Need to Write” and “When I Dream of Freedom” in Adanna, Issue 11, Fall 2021“Transubstantiation” in Unruly Catholic Feminists: Prose, Poetry, and the Future of the Faith, Jeana DelRosso, Leigh Eicke, Ana Kothe, editors, SUNY Press, 2021“The New Time Is Not Yet Poetry” in Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Vol. XXXV, Summer 2021“It’s Hard to Reason with the Dead,” in Short Takes, Persimmon Tree, Summer 2021“Vatican II Periti: An Acrostic (Hans Kung, 1928 - 2021),” in Christian Century, June 14, 2021“Twelve Ways of Looking at Today” in Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, 2021

Selected Recent Reviews

Review of Poetry Is Not a Luxury by Anonymous in Republic of Letters, May 15, 2025Review of We Carry Smoke and Paper: Essays on the Grief and Hope of Conversion by Melody S. Gee in Today’s American Catholic, April 8, 2025Review of The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage, by Richard Rohr, in Today’s American Catholic, March 3, 2025Review of Walking through the Valley: Recovering the Purpose of Biblical Lament by May Young, in US Catholic, March 2025Review of High Hawk by Amy Frykholm in Englewood Review of Books, February 26, 2025Review of A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality by Kathleen Norris and Gareth Higgins in National Catholic Reporter, January 18, 2025Review of The Rest Is Memory: A Novel by Lily Tuck in Englewood Review of Books, December 11, 2024Review of The Mystics Would Like a Word by Shannon K. Evans in Today’s American Catholic, December 2024Review of The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma, Hogarth Publishing, in Englewood Review of Books, October 24, 2024Review of *Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Avila, translated by Dana Delibovi, Monkfish Publishing in US Catholic, October 2024Review of Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024 in Englewood Review of Books, July 31, 2024Review of The Sacrament of Same-Sex Marriage: An Inclusive Vision for the Catholic Church by Bridget Burke Ravizza, Rowman & Littlefield, 2024 in US Catholic, August 2024Review of First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis by Austen Ivereigh in National Catholic Reporter, April 20, 2024Review of How Ableism Fuels Racism: Dismantling the Hierarchy of Bodies in the Church by Lamar Hardwick, Brazos Press, 2024 on Englewood Review of Books, February 29, 2024Review of Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Failed a Generation, by Jonathan Ward, Brazos Press, 2023 in National Catholic Reporter, August 5, 2023Review of Christian Poetry in America Since 1940: An Anthology, edited by Micah Mattix and Sally Thomas (Paraclete Press, 2022) in National Catholic Reporter, April 22, 2023

Books

Rocking Like It’s All Intermezzo: 21st Century Psalm Responsorials, Foreword by Sofia M. Starnes, Resource Publications, 2019.What does it mean that the Psalms are the prayer book of the people? Rocking Like It’s All Intermezzo: 21st Psalms Responsorials is one such person’s prayer book. Using familiar refrains as their starting points, the poems attempt a balance between how the Psalmist understood God’s faithfulness and how the poet’s lived experience requires revised understanding in some places, renewed commitment in others. In addition to an insightful Foreword by acclaimed poet Sofia M. Starnes, these 64 poems tell of an intimate, honest reorientation to God’s promises.Rocking can be purchased as a paperback at the Wipf and Stock website or as a paperback or in hardcover at Amazon.Rocking, read by Deborah Thorne Mazzone, Charles C. Bradley, and the author, can be purchased as an Audible download at Amazon or at Audible.Rocking can be downloaded as an ebook at the Amazon Kindle store or on Google Play.Praise for Rocking“In Rocking Like It’s All Intermezzo, Maryanne Hannan invites us to find the cosmic irony in understanding human life as merely a brief solo interlude during which we wait for the climax in the whole grand story of God’s creation of the world and its end, when each of our lives is already ultimately eternal and communal because ‘divinity itself we bear,’ and God’s presence is palpable in the here and now as well.”—Mary Ann B. Miller, Professor of Literature, Caldwell University and Founding Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry“In her brief lyrics, Maryanne Hannan offers readers a voice that poses questions, gives praise, displays wit— all genuine expressions of a poet who knows the power of the right word rightly placed. Conversing with the language of the Psalms, these poems showcase the spectrum of the ways humans respond to the Divine.”—Nathaniel Lee Hansen, Editor, The Windhover“Maryanne Hannan’s debut collection is a book of contemporary poems and prayers that resurrects worn out religious language and breathes new life into it. . . . The theme of the volume woven throughout is gratitude for the miraculous fact of creation as the poet invents a book of Psalms for our present moment, charging each poem with ‘the light of [God’s] grandeur’ and laying claim to poetry as both sign of our fall and source of our salvation, ‘our very own grasped apple.’ To read these poems is to pray them and to assent to Hannan’s generous doxology: ‘Holy, what’s lost / Holy, what’s found / Holy, the Whole.’”—Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, author of Lovers’ Almanac and Still PilgrimExcerpts from Rocking ReviewsThe lively, life-affirming collection explores spirituality and connection to God on a personal and communal level through contemporary poetic responses… Hannan’s debut delivers. The collection rocks.Donna Dzurilla, review in Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, 2021.

Thank you

Contact at maryhan47 at gmail dot com

• Bye for Now!