“Her keen ear for language makes the poems sing, occasionally in formal verse or even rhyme. These poems demand multiple readings.”—15 Bytes Book Award for Poetry
“Her work is perhaps more profoundly grounded in Western landscapes, histories, and traditions than any other work you might pick up, whether Native or non-Native.”—Writing Westward Podcast
“Rain Scald is an invitation to witness the familiar and unfamiliar terrain of what is sacred of life and death. . . . It is a collection that the reader will read more than once, each time diving farther into the gorge, each time standing in the rain a bit longer.”—Concho River Review
“The silence surrounding trauma lies at the heart of Rain Scald, the shattering first collection by poet Tacey M. Atsitty.”—Broadsided Press
“She sprinkles her poems with hyphenated word pairs that spice the poems in meaningful ways. . . . She has built a solid foundation to continue growing and producing reputable work such as this volume.”—Roundup
“Formally varied, the language in these poems is always rich with layered meaning. This allows [Atsitty] to handle her subject matter delicately and to braid the English of her academic study of poetry with the language, myth, and poetic tradition of her Navajo culture.”—Archivation Exploration
“Narrative, lyric, and deeply human, Tacey’s poems open to a world of folk and spirit where so few of us have ever dwelled. Her songs waste no words. Her stories are the stuff of hallowed ground. It is with a wonder of word and image that she shows us the strength and beauty of the Diyin Diné’é way.”—Jim Barnes, author of The American Book of the Dead: Poems
“‘How long had my hands / been scalded in dishwater, grabbing for knives or forks,’ writes Tacey Atsitty in this marvelous debut collection. Steeped in Navajo culture, Tacey Atsitty writes a poetry where rain, expected to be nourishing, is also a torrent, burning with sensation. Her poetry, formally resourceful and resonant, suffuses elegy with insight and prayer.”—Arthur Sze, author of Compass Rose
“Surprising inventions of syntax and subjectivity serve a poetics at once visionary and imbued with the grit of existence. Tempered by hardship, seasoned with experience, this brilliant book witnesses a world Atsitty knows intimately and, in doing so, offers courageous testimony to suffering and spiritual resilience. I can think of no poet writing today whose work is more gorgeous or moving, no one who brings more heart or brains to the page.”—Alice Fulton, author of Barely Composed: Poems
