Tani Arness — Poet

We have waited two millennia for ancient women's stories, not from men's reed pens, but from a woman's intimate knowing. This is not a retelling, but a revelatory journey—from a devout little girl trying to find her way through "the child's spiritual confusion" to her full-adult-knowing that "I, too, am a tongue of fire." These poems are women's psalms—our truths, our struggles, our sacred text.

Mary Oishi, Albuquerque Poet Laureate (2020-2022), author of Sidewalk Cruiseship

Who Will Speak to Snakes: Poems of Women and the Bible is a dramatically original book. Original isn't always synonymous with brilliant but in this case both adjectives describe a single compelling text. In these poems, Tani Arness mines her experience as a girl becoming a woman, reading the Bible throughout her Pentecostal childhood, what she learned from a mother who was as rational as she was devout, and a wisdom of language acquired through a life of adventure and acute observation. In Arness's voice, myth is reworked and women see, hear, experience and act from a place of authenticity. It's no exaggeration to say this is one of the most powerful poetry collections I've read in a long time.

—Margaret Randall, author of I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary and Wild Card.

Tzimtzum

5 contemporary poets lend us their hearts

Tzimtzum: 5 contemporary poets lends us their hearts is an anthology of elemental voices.

Poets: aaron a. abeyta, Tani Arness, Richard Broderick, Judyth Hill and Katherine DiBella Seluja

These writers speak unabashedly of love and of death.

Author Tani Arness