O, hot doctrine of O

Artist Statement

I’ve been experimenting with combining poetry and embroidery into a form I’m calling poembroidery. As I was writing "O, hot doctrine of O," meditating on religious indoctrination across generations of my family, the DNA spiral sprang to mind. I often love the verso side of an embroidery more than the embroidery itself, so I intentionally captured it over a double image of Logan Temple. Embroidery is an art that invites practitioners and viewers to slow down, take time, linger, breathe—a counterpoise to this poem's down-spiraling breathlessness.

Dayna Patterson is a Thea-curious recovering Mormon, fungophile, macrophotography enthusiast, and textile artist. She’s the author of Titania in Yellow (Porkbelly Press, 2019) and If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020). Her book O Lady, Speak Again is forthcoming from Signature Books in early 2023. Honors include the Association for Mormon Letters Poetry Award and the 2019 #DignityNotDetention Poetry Prize judged by Ilya Kaminsky. Her creative work has appeared recently in EcoTheo, Kenyon Review, and Whale Road Review. She’s the founding editor (now emerita) of Psaltery & Lyre and a co-editor of Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry. In her spare time, she curates Poetry + Fungus, a pairing of poetry books and species from the fungal world. DaynaPatterson.com