Today Means Amen

by Sierra DeMulder

Overview

Vivid, courageous, and candid, the poetry of Sierra deMulder speaks straight to the heart.

Dear you:
Whoever you are,
However you got here,
This is exactly where you are supposed to be.
This moment has waited its whole life for you.

These are the opening lines of "Today Means Amen," YouTube star Sierra deMulder's immensely powerful and virally popular poem, which lends its title to this collection. Like her fellow Millennial poets Tyler Knot Gregson, Clementine von Radics, and Lang Leav, Sierra has the gift of speaking directly to the reader. "Today Means Amen" has become an anthem of sorts to thousands, who find themselves reflected in its pain, its fierceness, its tenderness -- but also in its triumphant culminating refrain:

You made it
You made it
You made it
Here.

The poems in Sierra's new book explore the rocky terrains of love, family, and womanhood with this same remarkable honesty and generosity. Today Means Amen brings this important young poet's work to an even broader audience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449474119
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date:	02/02/2016
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Sierra DeMulder is a two-time National Poetry Slam champion, 2009 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational "Best Female Poet", and recipient of a 2014 McKnight Fellowship. Her work has been featured on NPR, Huffington Post, The Advocate, and more. DeMulder is curriculum director of the Gustavus Adolphus College Institute of Spoken Word and Poetry Slam, an annual writing summer camp for high school students, and a co-founder of Button Poetry, the largest YouTube channel for poetry in the world. She regularly tours, performing at high schools, colleges, prisons, churches, and homeless shelters.

Table of Contents

Bowl of Diamonds

In the in-Between 3

My Lover Found Me Weeping on the Couch 5

The Origin of the Heart as an Indicator of Love 7

Without 9

Small Poem 10

I Have Mistaken Myself 11

Seven Layers of Hell 13

Uninhabitable 14

A Beehive Pitched in the River

The Living Room Needs a New Coat of Paint 19

The Origin of the Funeral Hat 20

For My Niece Livia, Age 8 22

A Thousand Pieces 26

Progress Report 28

In The Train Station in Munich 30

Thanksgiving, 2011 32

God Bless Your Fingers 33

Your Love Finds its Way Back 34

Missouri 35

Remember 36

Pay the Boatman

Happy New Year 41

A Stranger Died in an Avalanche 43

The Origin of Breast Milk 45

Beautiful 47

Teeth 48

Exodus 33:20 50

Ode to My Bottom Lip 51

I Was Asked To Speak at Your Wedding 52

Gardener's Daughter 53

Telephone 57

Floating 58

After Googling Affirmations For Abuse Survivors 60

Some Invisible Machine

It Rained For Two Days Straight 65

Won't You Let Me? 66

Thirteen Stanzas for Sarah Winchester Whom I Think I Understand 67

This, Too, Is Not For You 70

Made For Blood 72

One More Theory About Money 73

Existential Crisis Brought Forth By Complaining About My Boyfriend Over a Basket of Cheese Curds 74

The Origin of the Bathrobe 76

At the End of the Day, I Am an Animal 78

Facts Written From an Airplane 80

Mantra to Overcome Depression 82

Sing to Me Then

Prayer: Hope, Screaming 87

The Two Poet-Daughters 88

These Hours I Have Not Lost But Do Not Remember 90

Today Means Amen 91

Release It 94

Tonight In Yoga 96

The Lucky Grow Old 98

The Day Of The Last Fire 100

Chai & Whiskey 102

About The Author 103

Acknowledgments 103