Mary Peelen, M.Div., MFA, is a writer who lives in San Francisco and Paris. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Poetry Review (UK), and other journals. Her poetry collection, Quantum Heresies, won the 2019 Kithara Book Prize.
New Short Fiction:
The Talented Higgs Boson / New Critique
INTERVIEWS
Poetry of Logical Ideas in The Adroit Journal / Interview by Gizem Karaali
Interview with Mary Peelen & Susan Rich / Tinderbox Poetry Journal
10 Questions for Mary Peelen / The Massachusetts Review
TPQ5: Mary Peelen / Interview by The Poetry Question
Reviews of QUANTUM HERESIES: poems by Mary Peelen
Poetry Northwest Reviewed by Jenna Le
The Adroit Journal Reviewed by Deborah Bacharach
Quantum Heresies Reviewed by Brian Clegg
The Journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Book Review
The Cortland Review Reviewed by Kim Jacobs-Beck
The Rupture (previously The Collagist) Reviewed by Anne Graue
The Literary Review Reviewed by Heather Lang
Angelus Reviewed by Nick Ripatrazone
The Alchemist’s Kitchen Reviewed by Susan Rich
RHINO Reviewed by Donna Vorreyer
Psaltery & Lyre Reviewed by Risa Denenberg
> Quantum Heresies: The TRAILER (YouTube, 2 mins). A beautiful short film by writer, artist, filmmaker Amanda Davidson. Music by Isaac Schankler.
Words about QUANTUM HERESIES
In these lithe, contemplative poems, Mary Peelen faces the complexities of life—and death—and works to solve them. Peelen’s mind is a wonder to inhabit; she leaps effortlessly between world and interior, calculation and metaphor, so gracefully that each conclusion feels as though it can be the only correct answer, the sole solution. If anyone can manage the math to or from the divine, it’s this poet. —Leila Chatti, author of Tunsiya/Amrikiya
Mary Peelen’s spare poems pulse with what they contain and describe—in both the imagistic and the mathematical sense of the word—harnessing the power of the sciences to navigate the chthonic worlds of illness, loss, and desire on both personal and planetary scales. Peelen denies the divisions of mind and body, art and science, precision and ardor. Her poems resonate with allusion (Lady Lazarus’s hair as a supernova) and sound (copernicium, ununoctium). Peelen unveils new ways to make sense of our complicated, contradictory world. —Elizabeth Bradfield, naturalist and author of Toward Antarctica
Mary Peelen‘s poems use the vocabulary of physics to tell a story. Just as there are patterns in nature, Peelen creates patterns of language through repetition and parallelism. She moves suddenly and seamlessly between the ethereal world of science and the everyday world: “Optimistic as Midwestern girls,” she writes, “we dreamt of quantum entanglement,/ our cliquish leap into brilliance/ about as probable as photon emission.”
—Radar Poetry
Poems Online:
Prognosis / Harvard Divinity Bulletin
Confessions / The Minnesota Review
String Theory / The Poetry Review (UK)
Universal Law / Alaska Quarterly Review
Aphasia / Beloit Poetry Journal
Negative One / Guesthouse
One / Harvard Divinity Bulletin
Ontology / Pleiades
Ecstatic Syllabi: Four Poems / The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics
Hemicrania / Valparaiso Poetry Review
Interim / Baltimore Review
Thermodynamics / Radar Poetry
Variable / The Massachusetts Review
Birds of Japan / Tinderbox Poetry Journal
Chaos Theory / Radar Poetry
Mandelbrot Set / Radar Poetry
Infinite Gravity / Radar Poetry
Periodic Table of the Elements / Antioch Review
Barometer / Deaf Poets Society
Aurora Borealis / Deaf Poets Society
Migraine / Michigan Quarterly Review
Zero / Michigan Quarterly Review
Awake / The Poetry Review (UK)
Fault / New American Writing
Remembrance / New American Writing
Properties of Light / Barrow Street Journal
Proof / Psaltery & Lyre
Sunday Morning / Psaltery & Lyre
INTERVIEWS
Poetry of Logical Ideas in The Adroit Journal / Interview by Gizem Karaali
Interview with Mary Peelen & Susan Rich / Tinderbox Poetry Journal
10 Questions for Mary Peelen / The Massachusetts Review
TPQ5: Mary Peelen / Interview by The Poetry Question
FICTION
Godsend / Gulf Coast
NONFICTION and CROSS GENRE
Evidence / Redivider Issue 15.2
Stagecraft / The Shell Game (Anthology) edited by Kim Adrian
Draw / Bennington Review
Sarong / Women in Clothes edited by Sheila Heti et al
BOOK REVIEWS
Tunsiya/Amrikiya by Leila Chatti / Hyacinth Girl Press
Aileron by Geraldine Connolly / Whale Road Review
Camera by Maxine Chernoff / Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics