These are the prayers we most need right now—prayers for courage, accountability, awe and uncertainty. Poem prayers that link us more deeply to each other and the miraculous world we inhabit. Spare prayers as essential as bone. Through the brittle, the failed, the broken, Nan Seymour’s love of life shines through.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of Hush and Naked for Tea
“In a world of commerce and confusion and often reaching for the wrong thing, it's poetry we must turn to—over and over—the language of beauty and heartbreak that cracks us open and which reminds us—especially when we feel lost—that we are still here, and that we have a job to do—which is to live in praise, awakening and humility.
Thank goodness for the work of Nan Seymour, a poet who has the courage to journey to the land of broken and beautiful things, a writer who has sacrificed her protective coating, and has allowed herself to be stung by the pain of a ravaged world. These prayers are her gift to us, a reminder of our alliance with one another, with the planet, and with ourselves. There is forgiveness and hope on every page.”
–Laurie Wagner, 27 Powers
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“I urge you to pick up Nan Seymour’s prayers not meant for heaven, a small but mighty book that comes welcome as rain during a prolonged drought. In fact, as I made my way through this quietly stunning debut collection, I continuously had a sensation of something in me being quenched, something that I hadn’t even realized was so thirsty for the kind of nourishment only poems—and perhaps sunlight and water—can bring.”
—Jena Schwartz, author, writing coach,
lover of words and humanity since 1974
prayers not meant for heaven
by Nan Seymour
As the foreword reads, “Nan’s poems read like tinctures, dissolving in our mouths as we read, spreading both outward and inward, infusing us with hope and humility and healing... The lines are a fingertip of touch that glaze us with a quiet depth of connection and a spirited aliveness that a more heavy-handed prayer book, lifted from oaken pews, cannot.”
According to Seymour, “These prayers are not meant to ascend, but travel along the earth like vines and leave us more radically connected, more lovingly and knowingly intertwined.”
Nan Seymour, a descendent of Utah pioneers, facilitates writing experiences through her River Writing collective in Salt Lake City. She’s led writing and storytelling workshops for cancer survivors, high school students, unsheltered writers, and survivors of domestic violence. This is her debut collection of poetry.
