My tensed shoulders relaxed while reading the radical care captured within Incantations for Rest. Atena O. Danner wields her powerful magic by bringing the systems that produce the weariness of racial and ableist oppression to light while she also lovingly rubbing a healing balm upon her rest-worthy readers’ spirits." —Sekile M. Nzinga, author of Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity and editor of Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering, and the Academy
“Atena O. Danner has offered the world a reflection and revelation on legacy, imagination, and truthful naming in Incantations for Rest: Poems, Meditations, and Other Magic. Moving back in time to visceral memory and ancestral lineage and stretching out into a connected collective future where we leave no one behind, these poems are both a mending to the weary and a hymn to affirming what matters. I will be returning to them again and again throughout the years, for guidance, fortification, and magic. —Isabel Abbott, author of Salt + Honey: secular prayers for hedonistic hearts
“Atena O. Danner’s poems invite us into the universal, while also singing praise and honor of what it means to be a Black woman in today’s United States. She covers specifics and love of her community via the heartbreak and joy voiced via such powerful pieces as ‘Generational Wealth,’ ‘Reciprocity,’ ‘Giving Each Other Our Flowers,’ and ‘Ancestors of the Page and Call.’ This heart-centered collection is the balm that can bring all of us to better love, understanding and movement toward a just world fit for our beloved generations to come." —Jen Haines, poet and educator
“How deeply we need this invitation to divine rest—these spells for singing out, for swimming alone, for the beauty of Blackness, and for being ourselves, whoever we are. I will be reaching for this book for public worship and private reflection. I love how personal yet accessible and universal Danner’s poetry is, honoring her own experience and ancestors while calling each of us to grow and feel our interconnectedness. I feel honored now to witness the truth and beauty she has nurtured in this book. She has given birth to art and magic. Keep this book in your spiritual medicine kit.” —Erin J. Walter, editor of Care for the World: Reflections on Community Ministry
“Whether you are an avid reader of poetry collections or a casual appreciator of the occasional poem, you'll want to add this book to your repertoire. To call Atena O. Danner's poems ‘incantations’ is exactly right—these are incantations, spells, prayers, recipes, and passionate calls to rest, care, and liberation. A long-time organizer and educator, Atena O. Danner offers balms for the weary, reminding us to rest so that we can show up for others in the ways we most want to. Reading these is a gift for anyone feeling worn down by the big (systems of oppression, especially against Black women and femmes) and the small (the everyday challenges of parenting, for example.) Since I read this collection, I've been keeping these incantations close. They work as monthly meditations or daily affirmations—reminders to breathe, to sing, to ‘pour love into an active volcano.’ —Coya Paz, writer, director, and artistic director of Free Street Theater
