166. Finding Beauty in the Mundane — A Conversation with Darlene Young

This week’s episode is with an incredible Latter-day Saint poet, Darlene Young. Darlene has just released a new book of poetry, called Here, and 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 Darlene, she talked about the value of poetry itself  — how it can be a “dance” to prose’s “walk,” and help us to see life as “more abundant,” and show the moments we might see as mundane in a more poignant and meaningful light.

Darlene 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 Darlene’s.

And, knowing that we’re releasing this episode Mother’s Day weekend, we also talked with Darlene 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” is the word that we kept coming back to when we talked with Darlene 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.

Darlene received her BA and MFA from BYU, and has taught English and Writing as adjunct faculty there. If you want to pick up Darlene’s book, again, it’s called Here and published by BCC Press and you can pick it up on Amazon.