Hey everybody, this is Tim Chavez from Faith Matters. Today's episode was with an incredible

Latter-day Saint poet, Darleen Young. Darleen has just released a new book of poetry called

Here, which was published by BCC Press. It's an honest, vulnerable, relatable, and incredibly

approachable book that we laughed and cried our way through. In our conversation with Darleen,

she talked about the value of poetry itself, how it can be a dance to prose's walk,

help us to see life as more abundant, and show the moments we might see as mundane,

in a more poignant and meaningful light. Darleen also reminded us that in order for art to really

affect us, it has to tell the truth. Telling the truth is the beginning of healing,

and we've rarely encountered Latter-day Saint poetry that does this as well as Darleen's.

And knowing that we'd be releasing this episode on Mother's Day weekend, we also talked with

Darleen about her poetry that speaks to the struggles and beauties of motherhood,

parenting, and the bittersweetness of it all. Her poetry really does have a way of giving life

to feelings that for many of us may have previously been somewhat indescribable. In the end,

it seemed like bittersweet was the word that we kept coming back to when we talked with Darleen

and encountered her work. It doesn't shy away from the difficult, the annoying,

or the tedious aspects of our lives, but in a really beautiful way, as faith at its best does,

it paints them as part of a fuller picture of beauty and purpose. Darleen received her BA

and MFA from BYU and has taught English and writing as that junk faculty there.

So if you want to pick up Darleen's book, again, it's called Here and was published by BCC Press.

You can pick it up now on Amazon. Thanks as always for listening, and with that, we'll jump right

into the conversation. All right, well, Darleen, thank you so much for being here. We are

serious fans of yours, so we're really excited to have you in the studio. I'm a fan of your stew.

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