Dark Beds

Beginning with the perfect epigraph— “motherhood, that grand opera staged in a cave” (Laura Kasischke)—Diana Whitney’s Dark Beds explores the drama of domesticity, desire, and devotion. Set in a rural Vermont that feels darkly magical, the (actual and possible) dangers and discoveries the speaker fa......more

A juxtaposition of family and intimacy, motherhood and desire — the world tells us we, as women, can’t have them both but Whitney weaves a story through seasons, through nature, to prove we can. Incredibly beautiful imagery!......more

Reading Diana’s beautiful poems in her new collection “Dark Beds” makes me want to live someplace other than Southern California, some place like Vermont, with seasons, where you can tap trees for syrup, watch the ice fishermen and the wind spit snow-shards on channels of glare ice (from the poem Ge......more

I loved the lush natural imagery in this book and the way the landscape served as a mirror for the speaker's struggles with transgression and desire. It's an intense and beautiful book! Highly recommend!......more

There is no pristine suburban mommy in these poems about motherhood. Instead the heroine is bold, imaginative, and sexual. She protects her children lioness-style. She recoils from denial and imagines the possible however dark. The poems are rich with metaphor, yet they are fully accessible, not a s......more