Overview

Notes from a Marine Biologist's Daughter renders in poems the inheritance of a love of the wild, love of language, love of family. Loss, grief, and recovery resolve in a closely observed, deeply felt connection to nature. In these mostly lyrical quiet poems, we find tenderness in an animal's behavior, comfort in the sounds of a storm, an awareness that nature has a life that does not depend on us, that needs to be left alone, but from which we can learn and, when we need it, be comforted. The tonal range of these poems is extensive, including exuberance and grief, seeking and confirmation, solitude and solidarity. Two worlds are closely noted in this collection of autobiographical poems, the childhood world of Wrightsville Sound and the adult daughter's world of south Florida. Infused in the experience of both of these worlds, past and present, is the enduring presence and power of a marine biologist mother.

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9781955194143

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Reviews

"Notes from a Marine Biologist's Daughter introduces the reader to a rich and varied lexicon of the natural world, its inhabitants, and the poet's interaction and close relationship with the same. These poems pay deep attention: to paddling in the Everglades, walking in the neighborhood, and indelible childhood memories. Nature is a never-ending source of remarkable occurrences for this poet-naturalist. We have new eyes for our world, reading this enthralled insightful collection. -K. Alma Peterson The Last Place I Lived Was There No Interlude When Light Sprawled the Fen What an extraordinary book! It struggles and accepts, it frets and studies, and then, pleased, relaxes into knowing. It is filled not only with Anne McCrary Sullivan's knowledge of botany but with loving tributes to her mother and grandmother, memories of her father, lost when she was a girl. These poems tremble the heart and, at the same time, teach the world - of plants and flowers and trees. This book opens its arms to the world: ""I am the tree, rooted and sturdy, I am the wind passing through."" // ""I am dust, I am desert, my banks overflow with flood."" -Deena Linett When I Was Water Translucent When Fired Notes from a Marine Biologist's Daughter made me want to bow down and tap dance at the same time. It left me with a powerful (and lasting) feeling that, not only are we surrounded by quiet and not-so-quiet miracles, but we live inside and within a vast, complex, wonderfully inexplicable and explicable Being (called whatever you wish). There's no pantheism or fancy posturing here. Just the astounding beauty of reality. This work convinces me that poetry is not at the heart of everything. It is the heart of everything. -Patricia Corbus Finestra's Window Winner of the 2015 Off the Grid Poetry Prize"

Notes from a Marine Biologist's Daughter introduces the reader to a rich and varied lexicon of the natural world, its inhabitants, and the poet's interaction and close relationship with the same. These poems pay deep attention: to paddling in the Everglades, walking in the neighborhood, and indelible childhood memories. Nature is a never-ending source of remarkable occurrences for this poet-naturalist. We have new eyes for our world, reading this enthralled insightful collection. -K. Alma Peterson The Last Place I Lived Was There No Interlude When Light Sprawled the Fen What an extraordinary book! It struggles and accepts, it frets and studies, and then, pleased, relaxes into knowing. It is filled not only with Anne McCrary Sullivan's knowledge of botany but with loving tributes to her mother and grandmother, memories of her father, lost when she was a girl. These poems tremble the heart and, at the same time, teach the world - of plants and flowers and trees. This book opens its arms to the world: I am the tree, rooted and sturdy, I am the wind passing through. // I am dust, I am desert, my banks overflow with flood. -Deena Linett When I Was Water Translucent When Fired Notes from a Marine Biologist's Daughter made me want to bow down and tap dance at the same time. It left me with a powerful (and lasting) feeling that, not only are we surrounded by quiet and not-so-quiet miracles, but we live inside and within a vast, complex, wonderfully inexplicable and explicable Being (called whatever you wish). There's no pantheism or fancy posturing here. Just the astounding beauty of reality. This work convinces me that poetry is not at the heart of everything. It is the heart of everything. -Patricia Corbus Finestra's Window Winner of the 2015 Off the Grid Poetry Prize

Author Information

Anne McCrary Sullivan is a poet and naturalist living on the Gulf Coast of Florida. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, she is author of Ecology II: Throat Song from the Everglades and Learning Calabar: Notes from a Poet's Year in Nigeria; co-author with Holly Genzen of Paddling the Everglades Wilderness Waterway and The Everglades: Stories of Grit and Spirit from the Mangrove Wilderness. Now retired from teaching, she previously taught high school English and creative writing in Texas, then taught qualitative research methods at the university level in Florida. As a Fulbright Scholar, she taught qualitative research and environmental studies at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. She continues work in the field of poetic inquiry and is actively engaged with the International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry. Find her on the web at www.annemccrarysullivan.com.

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