Bone Valley Hymnal arrives from the molten core of Utah’s arid landscapes. Here, with the fossils mothers pass down to their daughters Franson-Thiel weaves hymns of heritage and gender performativity. In a pursuit to reconcile the self from one’s ancestry, she unearths a “line of graves/a long ribcage”. These poems present compelling connections between science, gender, faith, and myth-making. Fans of the work of Alda Merini, K-Ming Chang, and Emily Skaja will enjoy the electric and surprising imagery of Franson-Thiel’s poetry.

"In Bone Valley Hymnal, Taylor Franson-Thiel grapples with ancestral legacies of violence, from ancient Viking mother conquerors to the more recent Mormon victims of statewide extermination orders. “Somewhere inside me is a watershed rivering/apart my family line,” she writes. “The lineage of water—/a burden I have forgotten how to carry.” Against the desert landscape of Utah, Franson-Thiel explores questions of faith and doubt, safety and desire, and mortality and grief, drawing upon matrilineal inheritances of resilience to consider how we survive patriarchal abuse and oppression. These formally varied, sonically resonant poems, delivered in the structure of a hymnbook, offer a haunting language of covenant, sacrament, and prophecy as they meditate on the body and all it survives. In this collection, Franson-Thiel debuts as the gifted and bold voice of a generation with blood as its birthrite."
—Alyse Knorr, author of Super Mario Bros. 3, Ardor, and Wolf Tours