{"id":1455,"date":"2025-08-06T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/new_staging\/?page_id=1455"},"modified":"2025-09-19T19:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T23:46:07","slug":"the-devils-fools","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marygilliland.com\/?page_id=1455","title":{"rendered":"The Devil’s Fools"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"THE<\/span><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
Purchase The Devil's Fools<\/em><\/div>
Codhill Press<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
SUNY Press<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Bookshop<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Signed Copy<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Subverting received traditions, embellishing mythic figures, the lyrics of <\/span>The Devil\u2019s Fools <\/strong>speak to and for those wanting heaven: modern pilgrims, medieval masons; seafarer, axe murderer, alcoholic; daughter, spouse, sibling, mother; a woman on pause, a monarch of the underworld, Eve stepping out past Eden. One country bombs another, there\u2019s mass animal slaughter during epidemic, never-ending yard work, love letters from the dead. Humans sorrow and glory, mourn and thrive, treasure the will to live\u2014with burdock and mushroom, apple and willow, cicada, cuckoo, brontosaurus, toad. The poems represent wild and delicious creaturely delusion, deception, vigor and joy.<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Mary Gilliland\u2019s magisterial new collection, <\/i>The Devil\u2019<\/i>s Fools, opens in myth and magic, but its vast reach is deeply rooted in her reverence for earth and all earthly creations. For Gilliland, to give a brief example, even so lowly a creature as the harvestfly\u2014whose \u201caqua \/ lighter blue\u201d wings as it hatches\u2014has given us \u201cthe origin of faerie.\u201d At once eco-sensual and erudite, Gilliland writes a nuanced poetry that richly investigates humanity\u2019s contradictory capacities to destroy and to love. \u201cLove\u2019s a maker,\u201d as the tour-de-force poem at the heart of this volume, \u201cAmong the Trees,\u201d puts it. From first to last, I am spellbound by the largesse of vision and the beauty of this wondrous collection.\u00a0<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

CYNTHIA HOGUE<\/p>\n

The Devil\u2019s Fools is a great collection of burnished, mercurial poems. Here Mary Gilliland turns every small, disappearing moment into something magnanimous and lasting. 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. Supremely gifted, Gilliland\u2019s <\/i>The Devil\u2019<\/i>s Fools is one of the most daring, unfoolable books in recent memory.\u00a0<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

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

From the opening line, \u201cWe have plenty of stories,\u201d to the finale, Mary Gilliland\u2019s <\/i>The Devil\u2019<\/i>s Fools proves a wide-ranging narrative which incorporates tales from classical myth, the Bible, the speaker\u2019s daily life, set in a world eroticized yet also spiritual. Through her stories, Gilliland examines the tensions of heterosexual relationships, a search for the divine in contemporary life, mystery in the daily. This book is both journey and celebration, glowing and tender. In a poetry full of images from the physical world, nature around us and the body\u2019s earthliness, Gilliland gives us her \u201cdirty yes to life\u201d.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

MARY CROW<\/p>\n

To see through Mary Gilliland\u2019s eyes is to experience afresh and anew the wonders of encounter with the liminal, the mysterious, and the all too ubiquitous but largely unseen.\u00a0Enjoy the ride!\u00a0As Gilliland calls us in Dionysus\u2019s voice, \u201cGreet me by Apollo\u2019s marble door, Meet me where Artemis drops spoor, Find me in the shadows of reliefs.\u201d\u00a0Indeed I will\u2014and what a joy and journey awaits!<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

HEIDI M. RAVVEN<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Links to full reviews<\/div>
Epoch<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Lightwood<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Southern Literary Review<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
The Devil's Fools Book Launch<\/div>