Daun Daemon
writer of poetry and short fiction
Daun Daemon’s debut collection, A Prayer for Forgiving My Parents, is both a commemoration and celebration. In recovering the past, Daemon unpacks the complicated and at times terrifying tensions within her family where the grit and gumption of a resourceful, entrepreneurial and tender mother is often undercut by a violent father. In such surroundings, a young person treads carefully and creatively. The poet says about her earliest years, “I was an origami child, folding myself into shapes.” Yet, she succeeds in the way to love, appreciation, and even absolution. A Prayer for Forgiving My Parents is (to quote the poet’s words about the door to her childhood bedroom) “a line of light pushing through the dark.” A brave first collection.
Maria Rouphail — author of the poetry collections Apertures, Second Skin, and most recently, All the Way to China and poetry editor at Main Street Rag.