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4 books match the query 'Patterson, Dayna'

cover of Baring Witness: 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage

Baring Witness

36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage

Edited by Holly Welker

University of Illinois Press, 2016

In Baring Witness, Holly Welker and thirty-six Mormon women write about devotion and love and luck, about the wonder of discovery, and about the journeys, both thorny and magical, to humor, grace, and contentment. They speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one's faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women's actions and sense of self; and the ways Mormon belief and culture can influence second marriages and same-sex unions. The result is an unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.
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cover of If Mother Braids a Waterfall

If Mother Braids a Waterfall

Dayna Patterson

Signature Books, 2020

Dayna Patterson has produced a book obsessed with motherhood and daughterhood, ancestry, and transition—of home, family, faith, and the narratives woven to uphold the Self. 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 in her place at the banquet table.

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cover of O Lady, Speak Again

O Lady, Speak Again

Patterson, Dayna

Signature Books, 2023

The witchy, spell-soaked poems in Patterson’s second collection explore female characters from Shakespeare’s plays—with a feminist twist. The collection grapples with women’s roles in Shakespeare and in Mormon culture, both heavily influenced by patriarchal structures that often silence marginalized voices. If you’re not well-versed in Shakespeare or Mormonism, don’t worry—these poems will delight and enchant you with their own deep magic, their tremendous power, their singing.

In these pages you’ll meet Cordelia, third wife of polygamous Lear. You’ll meet Miranda, sailing away from her father and his faith. You’ll encounter Ophelia, who enters an amphibious torpor when buried, and is reborn as forest ecologist, far from her father’s ghost. Lady Macbeth and the weird sisters get a retrial, and Juliet finds her way to a different ending. Shadowy goddesses like Hecate, mother of witches, are invoked and act within these pages. Rosalind from As You Like It is given the final word. These poems delve into faith crisis, queerness, abandonment, transgressive power, rebirth, and dream. Prepare to be entranced.
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cover of Our Lady of Thread

Our Lady of Thread

Patterson, Dayna

Signature Books, 2027

In Dayna Patterson’s third collection, she weaves together three threads: poems in the voice of God the Mother, prayer poems in the Catholic “Our Lady” tradition, and poems about mothering her own two kids through these fluctuating and anxious times. Our Lady of Thread pushes the boundaries of what a poetry collection can be—it includes embroidered collages, poembroideries (poem + embroidery), and a QR code that links readers to a stop-motion videopoem. In these inventive and experimental pieces, Patterson continues to wrestle with Mormon theology and history as she meditates on the feminine divine, motherhood, and the urgencies of our complex world. 

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