Praise for Tidal

The sensuality and tenderness of the poems in this collection allowed me to immerse fully and, at the end of things, rise up refreshed. Words like “wholesome” and “intimate” come to mind, and the sense of having been embraced in the voice of a lullaby. Each poem and line is well polished, nothing in excess. Drawing qualities of lands, waters and foliage, people and moments, in ways vivid but not startling, the poet brings the reader along on a journey of life. Her observations slide into sly humour which brings forth embodied laughter. 

Jury for the 2024 A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry

Born out of the mysterious Georgia wetlands, the poems in Mary Dean Lee’s Tidal ring out, echoing across a far greater expanse of geography and time. Salt marshes and mud flats populate these poems as does the moon that rules all our rising and falling. But at the center is the woman reflecting on her life, raging against social injustice, swimming through grief, and flowing in the currents of romantic love. These poems are powerfully political and deeply personal.

Denton Loving, author of Tamp

The poems in Tidal bring a lifetime of struggle, wonder and pain into luminous relief. Standout pieces like “Cardinal Flower,” “Chocolate Souffle,” “Dad at 96,” “Naming the Hills” and the brilliant political allegory “Driving Lessons, Baldwin County, Georgia” chronicle the passage of family, society and season with exuberant precision. Lee’s portrait of Georgia (where “the weight of kudzu collapses tar shacks, throttles trees”) is haunting, and her meditations on late motherhood and desire break new ground. Whether an old piano without a single working key, or “a loon calling make-love, make-love from the lake below,” Mary Dean Lee hears the music in all things.

Derek Webster, author of Mockingbird

Mary Dean Lee disrupts the breezy folk song about my land and your land. Geography–the salt marsh, the pine and pecan groves, the big up country wilderness–is only the beginning. Her body is your body too. Her sex is your sex. Her great want is your great want. And her justice is your justice. Lee cries at life and smirks at death and when the music stops she’s the one still dancing. Tidal is a smashing debut.

Barrett Warner, author of Why Is It So Hard to Kill You?