“‘I’m Mormon the way stars—rubbed out at noon … still burn’: Dayna Patterson’s bold, linguistically pyrotechnic and terribly moving testament to faith renounced and still omnipresent reclaims matriarchy and mitochondrial inheritance, making a chant from the names of Brigham Young’s polygamous wives, studying hard for belief through intimate epistolaries to ancestors in a past where polygamy is ‘familiar as summer / sweat.’ ‘The Mormons are coming,’ Patterson declares, and she interrogates that ancestral, theological, and gendered onslaught brilliantly through poems of fierce reinvention and homage: ‘Our orthodoxy/changed, etched over, effaced//by our palimpsestuous selves.’”
—Bruce Beasley, author of All Soul Parts Returned; recipient of Colorado Prize for Poetry; professor of English at Western Washington University
Order signed copies below:
(Each book order includes a hand-embroidered card & shipping | Prices below | U.S. addresses only)
If Mother Braids a Waterfall
In her debut collection of poetry and lyric essay, Patterson grapples with a patriarchal and polygamous heritage. After learning about her mother’s bisexuality, Patterson befriends doubt while simultaneously feeling the urge to unearth a feminist theology, one that envisions God the Mother taking pride of place at the banquet table.
$20.00
Titania in Yellow
In this cluster of poems, Titania muscles down “circlets of searing gold,” crowning herself as she returns to her own power. ... This book of poems is bread and salt and fang, nourishing and sharp, littered with mustard seed and spotted wings, everything steely draped in gossamer threads.
$12.00
Both Books
Purchase Titania in Yellow and If Mother Braids a Waterfall together.
$30.00
Poembroidery broadside
If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Poembroidery)
Order a hand-embroidered broadside of the poem “If Mother Braids a Waterfall.” Each broadside will be based on the design pictured, but may vary slightly. 8 1/2 x 11 in.
$125.00
Dayna Patterson 