Patterson, “If Mother Braids a Waterfall” (Reviewed by Steven Peck)

Author: Dayna Patterson
Title: If Mother Braids a Waterfall
Signature Books, 2020. 120 pages. Poetry.

Reviewed by Steven Peck, March 28, 2020

I cannot find the words to express how deeply this book affected me on multiple levels. I want to use superlatives like amazing, incredible, powerful because they fit, but they seem inadequate to the feelings, longings, depth, and tears that the poems evoked. Patterson is a well-published poet who I’ve enjoyed for years, but this work presents a unified composition in which the individual poems work together to create an integrated whole. She enters a conversation with the lives of her ancestors to explore their challenges and perspectives, which then serve as a springboard to examine her own time and place. These poems are beautiful not only in the use of its language, but in the way that the themes of meaning, doubt, and belief play a defining and structuring role throughout the work. This is a landmark collection in every sense. I thank Patterson for sharing so much artistry and wisdom in her work.