Dayna Patterson
DAYNA PATTERSON is the author of If Mother Braids a Waterfall, winner of the 2020 Association for Mormon Letters Poetry Award. Her second poetry collection, O Lady, Speak Again, is forthcoming from Signature Books in 2023. She is the founding editor in chief of Psaltery & Lyre and curates Poetry + Fungus in her spare time. daynapatterson.com.
Articles
Second Place: Our Lady of Innumerable Appellatives
Listen to the Out Loud version of the poem here. Enter into Her gates with thanksgivingand into Her courts with praise.—Psalm 100:4 1.Swirl of gold gleaming in our daughters’ eyes.Amen. Whorl of cirrostratus haloingthe moon.…
Read moreGod the Mother Speaks of Salt
Podcast version of this piece. I baptized you before you were born. After, rubbed you clean.I’ll cleanse all your wounds in season. You’ve forgottenhow to savor my holy. If you seek,you’ll find these veins run…
Read moreGod the Mother Speaks of Xenia
Podcast version of this piece. I AM the children sleeping under mylar in a Texas warehouse.I AM the fathers lifting toddlers to their shoulders on our journeyto safety and rest. I’m safety and rest. But…
Read moreBook of Life, for Timothy Liu
Podcast version of this piece. If there is a literal bookon a plinth of filigreed gold, and an angelstanding as sentinel at heaven’s needle-eye entrance, who’s not to sayour names appear etchedon its pages, un-erasable.…
Read moreGod the Mother Speaks of Hearts
Podcast version of this piece. won’t you agree with me the heart’s a glorious organ moon jelly a ghost heart throbbing in oceanlily bulb an earth heart humming undergroundbear a furred heart curled up in cave’s dark I’m…
Read moreOur Lady of the Temple
Her favorite is the whisper of slippers on plush carpet.
Her favorite is the window of stained glass, jewel-bright, reminding her
of a wildflower field and that cathedral in France.
Self-Portrait of Mormon Middle Child as Isabella
One by one within a month, four siblings bring their grievances before
Father, ruler of our domain. The laws of the home are too strict, they
complain, no gum in the house—let alone sex or booze. No shoes on
the living room’s cream carpet. A three-hour dose of church Sunday
After the Curtain Falls, Isabella Speaks in Achromatics
What’s yours is yours
and I am
{Cool Charcoal Slate}
Read moreTropical Butterfly House
As we enter, me and my girl,
the delicate proboscis of her finger
unfurls, hopeful, even expectant.
She is a perfect, peach-soft landing.
Offerings
The way he leaves a banana-mayo sandwich
on the counter. His special blend
of applesauce with too much cinnamon
brims over a white glass bowl.
The scratchy blue-and-green-car sheets
left folded on the hide-a-bed.