M. Travis Lane’s poetry has always been diverse: variously serious, silly, melancholy, cheerful, meditative, witty, philosophical, enigmatic, colloquial, intimate, simple, complex. Asked “What kind of poetry do you write? What do you write about?”, she has replied, accurately, “all kinds” and “anything” — calling her collections “eclectic miscellanies” and refusing to be nailed down by the critics’ need for tidiness. She shifts easily from lyric to monologue to epigram to song to riddle, drawing inspiration equally from the natural world and the world of art and imagination. Though her concerns are often feminist, environmental, civic, and political, her poems transcend such labels. And no matter what form an individual poem takes, there is something in the voice that makes it instantly recognizable as hers: a distinctive musical cadence, a groundedness in nature (nature not just appreciated but intimately observed, known, named), an immediacy of thought and emotion, a compassionate humanity, a questioning spirit. Crossover, Lane’s fifteenth collection, is a continuation of one poet’s exploration of the world and of her inner world, shared with us in the conviction that the spaces we inhabit overlap and connect.

One of Canada's most distinguished writers, M. Travis Lane lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She received her B.A. (Junior PBK) from Vassar College, and her M.A. and PhD. from Cornell University. She and her husband Lauriat Lane came to New Brunswick in 1960. Travis taught briefly at Cornell and at the University of New Brunswick and is a Honorary Research Associate with the English department at U.N.B. She is a member of the Voice of Women for Peace and a Raging Granny, a member of the Writer's Federation of New Brunswick and a Lifetime member of the League of Canadian Poets.

She has published nineteen books of poetry and two of prose. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in Literary Arts, and the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in Literary Arts. She was also shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2015.

M. Travis Lane's profile page

• Winner, Westminster Books Award for Poetry
• Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry

“M. Travis Lane is powerful and confident with the lyric voice.”

The Town Crier

“Simultaneously patient, surprising, joyful and mournful … Lane’s is a precise craft that opens up and lets out, that breathes.”

Arc Poetry