After the birth of her second child two years ago, Rachel Hunt Steenblik suffered such a severe bout of postpartum depression and anxiety that she landed in the hospital.
The Mormon mother and scholar was living on the East Coast, away from her close-knit family, including her parents in Provo, as well as the support system she developed while studying theology and philosophy at Southern California’s Claremont Graduate University.
As she got better, Steenblik returned to writing a series of poems inspired by her historical research about the Mormon concept of a Heavenly Mother. Writing “Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother” helped save her life.