Mary Gilliland: Red Tide at Sandy Bend

Barnacles sparkle, puffins glint, human practices result in fish-strewn beaches. Like blue-green algae on lakes and ponds, red tide is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Nourished by human waste and warming waters, cyanobacteria multiply in harmful algal blooms (HABs) that release neurotoxins. In a whirl of games, addictions, concussions, swimming bans, Red Tide at Sandy Bend posits a world of creaturely interdependence visceral and intimate.

Praise for Mary Gilliland:

Mary Gilliland’s poems walk the trail from ease through elegance to a thoughtful intensity. She brings to her work the rich flavors of the natural world, yet her destination is clearly news of the inner self, its perceptions, its relationships with others. She is not afraid of delight, neither does she shirk the hard tasks of anger, pain, and deep caring. 

—MARY OLIVER 

Gilliland waltzes smoothly between the cheeky and conversational and the lyrical….Across tightly-built lyrics, the poet establishes a levelheaded conversational ease that somehow makes room for celebration of the natural world, the inner world, and a sense of humor. Which is to say that Gilliland is full of surprises…

—LITHUB

Gilliland is a poet of witness and spirituality, grappling with climate devastation while also interrogating world policies and politics.

—DENISE DUHAMEL

Gilliland turns every small, disappearing moment into something magnanimous and lasting.

—ISHION HUTCHINSON