Blurbs for Always the Blue Tide TurningWith vivid sensory images and close attention to detail, Always the Blue Tide Turning draws the reader to many coasts: the high cliffs of loss, open stretches of childhood, and the literal ocean. Mary Shay McGuire writes poems deeply evocative of place. In many, nostalgia is lit by truth, and memory has the shadow of darker knowledge. Her endings often report these shadows with a quiet edge: the liquor holding its own,
my mother bends taking our picture / as if everything is fine. The book carries us from Cape Cod to Pennsylvania and back again; through three parts, McGuire treats family fractures, death, losses, and love with lyrical thoughtfulness and reflection. Katherine Bode-Lang, author of The Reformation, winner of the American Poetry ReviewHonickman First Book Prize
Aesthetic heir of Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Shay McGuire is also a painter. Her eye touches everything, feels deeply, and transforms each surface and anecdote with heart-rending restraint. Rich in the irrepressible objects and emotions of her Irish ancestry, near the sea in New England, and a life lived deliberately, her poems speak to our noisy days with wisdom, true beauty, and quiet art. Read this book more than once; let it teach you to see miracles.
Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author Poetry in America
Mary Shay McGuire is an artist at recognizing the pattern in gardens, in a seaside cottage, and in behavior the repetitions that create beauty and traditions as well as destroy lives. She takes on fearlessly the question of how to write about the past without nostalgia. In her poems, she works through the intricate relationships of mother, daughter, sister, and lover in language that is both precise and straightforward. Finishing this collection, I was surprised to look up and find myself somewhere other than in McGuire’s landscape; it is so vividly drawn.
Charlotte Holmes, author of The Glass Labyrinth
