{"id":1178,"date":"2024-01-18T18:28:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T23:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/?page_id=1178"},"modified":"2026-03-03T15:37:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T20:37:42","slug":"ember-days","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/?page_id=1178","title":{"rendered":"Ember Days"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image\"<\/span><\/div>
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Purchase Ember Days<\/em><\/div>
Codhill Press<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
SUNY Press<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Bookshop<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Odyssey Books<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Signed Copy<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Woolf\u2019s pen runs dry, Tesla holes up, Lincoln emerges in yet another bardo, and the rest of us tunnel through Wednesday\u2019s jammed boulevards, Friday\u2019s cash worthless, Saturday\u2019s prodigal feet. The poems of\u00a0Ember Days <\/strong>feature soldiers under duress, models transformed to artists, descendants of forced immigrants, survivors of hurricanes, witnesses for peace\u2014stepping up to our world\u2019s disasters, leveling with its possibilities, interrogating faith, justice, militarism, madness, and the perception and affection of intimate relationships.<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Mary Gilliland 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.\"<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

MARY OLIVER<\/p>\n

\"Like the apothecarist Keats, Mary Gilliland\u2019s poetry wells up from the healing force of unheard melodies. Her tensile lyric and fluent narrative grasp the sweet otherness in life, which is \u201cEve\u2019s radical helplessness\u201d to endure and bear intimate witness to both change and permanence\u2026a radiant testimony\u2014and a triumph\u2014of an unerring ear I deeply cherish. Mythical and grounded, her sensuously rich language enacts a poetry in which self-concentration brims beyond the far reach of desire, passion, and the self.\"<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

ISHION HUTCHINSON<\/p><\/div><\/div>

\"At once eco-sensual and erudite, Gilliland writes a nuanced poetry that richly investigates humanity\u2019s contradictory capacities to destroy and to love. From first to last, I am spellbound by the largesse of vision and the beauty.\"<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

CYNTHIA HOGUE<\/p>\n

\"Gilliland has continued to develop as a poet of high intelligence, considerable originality, and quiet intensity\u2026.whose work is consistently fresh and exploratory, in form as well as in substance.\"<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

STANLEY KUNITZ<\/p>\n

\"By turns mystical and realist, Mary Gilliland\u2019s intensely musical poems consider global apocalypse\u2014\u201cour course set for the destitute sunset\u201d\u2014but also celebrate the generative power of creativity,\u00a0 honoring the passion of cobbler, novelist, saint, inventor, photographer. With preternatural empathy, she enters fascinating sensibilities\u2014Virginia Woolf, Nikola Tesla\u2014and sings \u201cthe troubled music\u201d of history, a frontier that extends from fabled to factual, from the Hesperides to the moon, from resorts to war zones. Her vision is profound, enduring.\"<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

ALICE FULTON<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Links to full reviews<\/div>
Literary Hub<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Southern Literary Review<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
The Visionary Company<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Best American Poetry<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Stand Magazine<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Emma Lee<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Ember Days Book Launch<\/div>