Mary Ellen Redmond


“The poems in Mary Ellen Redmond’s The Ocean Effect remind us of thenecessity of stillness in a world of rupture and disjuncture. Here, themind of the poet ranges over the sandy edges of shores and tidalmarshes, through personal history, the detritus of dreams and thescarred heart we all carry, and distills image and thought and musicinto poems of great delicacy and sharp insight.The Ocean Effect is awork of depth, maturity and a lively enduring beauty.”



“With a wide smooth arc of wit, generosity, arch perception, & aninfallible dry prosody linking earned gravitas to dreamsong, Mary EllenRedmond flushes the placid from our consciousness, restoring the balm ofmusic & stark truths granted by what is. Reading her, gratitude loosensmy limbs.”


“What happens when what is seen (and felt) serves as compensation, thevehicle by which M. E. Redmond manages to reaffirm her own value, and bysome strange lyrical calculus, the world itself? Herein lie lyrics thathonor a state of loveless-ness. Here we witness a transformation: thearduous journey toward becoming one’s own true bride.”



“Mary Ellen Redmond’s The Ocean Effect leaps and turns with economy andhonesty in poems which serve as genuflections to her parents andstudents, to love, and to the natural world. Confident enough tounderstate, she invites us into spare, glimmering scenes of both longingand redemption. ‘Watch Leaves Fly at the Mercy’ ends with thisimperative: ‘look/and whatever tongue called this world/to attention—/put your ear to its lips.’ Precisely what The Ocean Effect compelled meto do.”