The Tree at the Center

by Kathryn Knight Sonntag

Kathryn Knight Sonntag's visionary verse of landscapes temporal and spiritual invokes a presence deeply needed in Mormon culture--the eminent absent Mother. She reveals the sacred feminine as spiritual survival. In feminist eco-fashion she sees invisible connections between animate and inanimate, the miraculous within mundane. She accepts the challenge of Mormon theology, to translate spirit from materia, as living soul. Her images are aflame, impossible to ignore, arresting attention to awakening the self, body and soul. In the gaps between our molecules she sees electrons marry form and energy, architecture and theology. She finds "the axis of absolute reality" in every moment, by walking an inner landscape to the "cosmic odeum" in the center of our own being. Her facile grasp of poetic technique woos truth from words. Read at your own risk: you will be consumed by the alchemy catalyzed within these pages. --Maxine Hanks, editor of Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism

Genres: Poetry, Religion, Spirituality, Womens, Faith, Mormonism

96 pages, Paperback

Published April 26, 2019

Reviews

[Steven Peck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sonntag’s collection is astonishing. Her deep familiarity with nature and its processes grace every page. The poems reflect an ecological savvy and sensitivity that captures the natural world’s sublimity and power—and terror. What I loved about these poems were references to land, sky, seeds and loam, pine bark beetles and dragonflies, midge and moth, trees and forest, the poems evince a familiarity with earth’s creatures and fauna, its untamed wildness. Throughout is a sense of the bodily nature of existence, especially that of being an embodied woman and the complexity and power of being such. Throughout the collection can be felt a longing for the divine feminine, with beautiful references to resonances with that lost divine presence in women and men’s lives today. It is hard to express how moving, vibrant, and powerful I found these poems. Sonntag has done something magical in bringing forth such beautiful and meaningful expressions of the rich landscape of human experience.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathryn Sonntag's poetry is an exquisite dichotomy. Erudite and intuitive. Grandiose and intimate. Powerful and bereaving. She leads us from inside the womb to the Holiest place and we find they are the same.

In a world sorely missing a divine feminine, we catch glimpses that She is there, waiting to be delivered; waiting to deliver. To find Her, we need only to recognize Her. Someone, show us how. Sonntag was made to do this.

With gifted hand, Sonntag has taken her knowledge and experience—her clay—and formed the words that allow for us to watch the female image appear. Her spiritual creation allows us to seek the physical embodied One:

you must ask for what you really want

I had several favorites in this collection—many dog-eared pages; many made me pause, reflect, and reread—Salvation Pantoum, Woman of Willendorf, Cube of Fire, Ezekiel's Visions, and The Grove are standouts, but Renascence stopped my heart:

I birth my own body,
unspool,
hand back the rib.

I dream of woman-made
woman, of which
man-made woman cannot conceive.
I birth my own

name from the end of a cord
still pulsing under
eternal, multifloras boughs,
break sac, emerge,
effulgent and ravenous
for a mother-tongue and a mother-land—

Next to me a lion and a lamb
purr in the grass. Every forest is green
and rising,
rising.

Piercing. Profound. Powerful.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are stirring and beautifully rendered meditations on the female body, fertility, and the body of the earth and the ways in which a more telluric and feminine divinity surrounds and embeds the stories we know from scripture. The title poem is especially memorable in its image of the crucified Lord hanging on the crucified tree. I wanted to savor every poem. The language and craft of these poems are of the highest order. Although infused with a particular eco-theological ambition that I found particularly inspiring, the music of the poetry is not subordinated to the themes and both pulls you in and stays with you afterwards.

[conor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in bites, a poem or two a day until I finished. I wanted to savor it, which I often struggle with for poetry, but find I enjoy it more when I approach it that way. I love the way that Sonntag engages with nature and historical imagery of the Divine Feminine to create a rich, compelling poetic tapestry. Lots of stunning images to bask in the shade of.

[Elaine Batty · Rating 3 out of 5]

LOVE LOVE “Baba Yaga”

[Cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I want to know
how a forest survives
without trees, how
will we welcome the Son
with the fires
still burning?”

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can tell from Sonntag’s writing that she is very well-researched in historical ideologies and various religious teachings. I appreciated that element so much because I think it’s reflected in her topic of the Mother Tree. Her branches are spread over the world. Her children are all Her fruit. It was neat seeing how imagery and stories of Her are captured through cultures all over the world. Sonntag’s writing is thick with layers so I think I would have to reread it again to slowly unveil all the messages and ideas she’s woven into her writing. I am just so glad women are finding Heavenly Mother in ways that apply personally to them and they are sharing their experiences and findings through their own voice.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poetry dives into symbolism of the natural world for the divine, and in particular the divine feminine (in LDS terms, Heavenly Mother). Sonntag's writing is rich and beautiful with layers of complexity. I continue to read many of her poems over and over, peeling back the layers.

Most of her poems take a little work to understand for the lay person, which is something I enjoy. If you are the kind of reader that doesn't want to look up words and references online at all to decipher meaning, then this might not be for you. However, if you are willing to put in the work, it will certainly be worth the effort.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not you, it's me. This really went over my head, but it's a reflection of my limitations, not the book. I'm planning to read her more recently published work, The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother, in the hope that it not being poetry will help me see her thought process more clearly. Maybe then I will be ready to revisit this with better understanding.

[Jamie Littlefield · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Rilke had lived as a woman, he wouldn't have been able to pen a more breathtaking book of poetry. The themes, metaphors, and language here are unexpectedly moving. Sonntag seems to draw on a deep well of literary ideas from the likes of mythologists such as Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade. Her insights into the feminine are raw and intelligent. I expect this will sit among my favorite volumes of poetry for the rest of my life.

[Heidi Pyper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful book of poems. So much depth and symbolism in each one. I read them rather quickly and only spent time rereading the final poem several times. I love books that make me feel like this one. I feel so much joy and sorrow all at the same time.

[Gabriel Núñez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful collection. Both intellectual and emotive, taken as a whole, these poems advance the proposition that there is a feminine deity, which having been dragged out of the temple by men, now is everywhere in the natural world, in the force of creation itself.

[Emily O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one in my backyard in Utah, in the company of squirrels and trees and little white flowers. This is richly thoughtful theological work, pointing to the divine feminine that -- though often gone unrecognized -- seems ever-present to me, and, apparently, to the author of these poems.

[Jessica Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully woven tapestry of language. So much to ponder here.

[Rebecca Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry and imagery! I love her work.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly healing. Finding the Divine Feminine through beautiful imagery and the author’s personal experience with motherhood. Absolutely lovely.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I were eloquent enough to write about how much I loved this. I got this from the library, but I will be buying my own copy.

[Aspen Stander Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this so much more the second time around, this time having myself been through pregnancy and postpartum and having studied more of the texts referenced.

[Krisanne Knudsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous, meditative book of poetry about the divine feminine--it instilled in me an even greater longing to know my Mother.

[Melisa Keenan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathryn Knight Sonntag's poetry collection, The Tree at the Center, delves into the profound connections between motherhood, nature, and the divine feminine. Sonntag crafts poems rich with ecological imagery and spiritual depth. The exploration of the Tree of Life as a symbol of the Divine Mother, reflects on themes of female exile and the quest for spiritual restoration. The book has invited me to engage more fully with the natural world and reconsider traditional theological narratives, offering a fresh perspective on the sacredness of the feminine.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Kathryn Sonntag's poetry and have already read some of these poems many times. The way Kathryn connects ecology to feminism and the Feminine Divine is profoundly illuminating. The health of the earth and the health of women are enmeshed together, and in these poems Kathryn explores this mystical, divine relationship.