Diaries of a Mormon Feminist - with author Carol Lynn Pearson
Breaking Down Patriarchy
Amy McPhie Allebest
4.9 • 654 Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy joins the renowned writer Carol Lynn Pearson in her home for an illuminating and tender conversation about the life and struggles of a major figure in LDS feminism, her insights into queer people in the Church, the lingering ghost of polygamy, and what it takes to be an independent thinker inside a patriarchal institution.
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Renowned Mormon feminist, Carol Lynn Pearson, is an American poet, author, screenwriter, and playwright. She frequently addresses the topics of LGBT acceptance and the role of Latter-Day Saint women. She has written many important works, including Goodbye, I Love You, The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, and most recently, The Diaries of Carol Lynn Pearson – Mormon Author, Feminist, and Activist.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, All the Best. Today I'm going to start with a poem by Carol Lynn Pearson. It's called A Motherless House. A Motherless House. I live in a motherless house. A broken home. How it happened, I cannot learn. When I had words enough to ask, where is my mother? |
| 0:25.1 | No one seemed to know. And no one thought it's strange that no one else knew either. |
| 0:30.6 | I live in a motherless house. They are good to me here, but I find that no kindly patriarchal care |
| 0:37.3 | eases the pain. I yearn for the day |
| 0:40.5 | someone will look at me and say, you certainly do look like your mother. I walk the rooms, |
| 0:47.9 | search the closets, look for something that might have belonged to her, a letter, a dress, a chair. Would she not have left a note? |
| 0:57.6 | I close my eyes and work to bring back her touch, her face. Surely there must have been a motherly |
| 1:05.2 | embrace I can call back for comfort. I live in a motherless house, motherless and without a trace. Who could have done this? |
| 1:15.5 | Who would tear an unwinged infant from its mother's arms and clear the place of every souvenir? |
| 1:22.9 | I live in a motherless house. I lie awake and listen always for the word that never comes, but might. |
| 1:32.4 | I bury my face in something soft as a breast. |
| 1:37.2 | I am a child crying for my mother in the night. |
| 1:43.0 | Today I am so honored to welcome to the podcast, the author of this poem, the renowned Mormon |
| 1:49.5 | feminist Carol Lynn Pearson. |
| 1:51.9 | She is an American poet, author, screenwriter, and playwright. |
| 1:56.2 | She frequently addresses the topics of LGBT acceptance and the role of Latter-day Saint Women. |
| 2:02.7 | She has written many important works, including Goodbye I Love You, the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, |
| 2:08.3 | and this year The Diaries of Carolyn Pearson, Mormon Author, Feminist, and Activist, which we'll be discussing today. |
| 2:16.0 | And this is an especially fun episode because we're here in |
| 2:19.7 | person together speaking in your home in California. Isn't that fun? It's great to have you in my |
| 2:25.5 | home, Amy. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much for having me. I've been so looking forward |
| 2:30.7 | to this episode. I loved your diary so much. It illuminated things about you that I |
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