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REASONS FOR ÉTANT DONNÉS, poetry by Sara Cahill Marron
Publication Date: October 3, 2025
Paperback, 104 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-19-2
Reasons for Étant Donnés, the second volume in the series begun with Reasons for the Long Tu’m, is a journey into the heart of modern myth. It is poetry that collects a thread from ancient stories, repeated for millennia, and strings them into a set of beads. The collection asks the reader not just to read, but to feel—to hold belief in their hands and trace its path. It peers through the key-hole size space between language and spirit and then steps aside—inviting you to look for yourself.
Praise for Sara Cahill Marron & Reasons for Étant Donnés
In Reasons for Étant Donnés, [l]ife has been reanimated in the primordial ovum of the five Mysteries of Light—Water, Marriage, Kingdom, Transfiguration, and Body. Each serves as a profound yet painful reminder of the elements that shape our reality and the forces that drive our inner, darker world.
—Esteban Oloarte, author of Transistor & Bardo
Reasons for Étant Donnés drives an intense dialogue with the reader, but also always with something else. To read is to bear witness to a compelling system at work, a curious reveal and obscure engaging in its own processes of alteration and relation. This is admirable work, stretched and emphatic without being overbearing. and when any generosity is offered, it is a succinct, pronounced humanity.
—billy cancel, author of BUTTERCUP TANTRUM MUTTON ENCORE
Haunting and haunted, Reasons for Étant Donnés is a work of genius and genus, of where we have come from, but also of ways to think about how we are linked and divided. At once a daybook of the feminine aspect, a breviary of holy motherhood, before which patriarchal structures tremble in an attempt less to understand than withstand the goddess, godless, godbody whose “iron bar (the nude’s spinal column)” stands at the center of creation and yet is the “time-giver” elsewhere seen gently swaying in “the reeds, / where you whisper/to the winds / sun is coming, / zeitgeber.”
—Michael Joyce, author of Capricorn, Venus Descendent & others
About the Author
Sara Cahill Marron is an artist working in the mediums of language and design.
Reasons for Étant Donnés and Reasons for the Long Tu’m are manuals for contemplation. Both volumes mirror the mythmaking of Catholic Church’s Rosary practice. Reasons for the Long Tu’m explores the three traditional mysteries, while Reasons for Étant Donnés focuses on the Mysteries of Light, which were added to the canon in 2002 by Pope John Paul II. To meditate on the poems collected herein, both volumes of Reasons suggest a physical root in the spiritual in order to pass through form with language. As collections of poetry, the books of Reasons lack canon or dogma. To accompany the poems, the poet has designed tactile translations of certain numbered Mysteries, which may be found at www.saracahillmarron.com.
Publication Date: October 3, 2025
Paperback, 104 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-19-2
Reasons for Étant Donnés, the second volume in the series begun with Reasons for the Long Tu’m, is a journey into the heart of modern myth. It is poetry that collects a thread from ancient stories, repeated for millennia, and strings them into a set of beads. The collection asks the reader not just to read, but to feel—to hold belief in their hands and trace its path. It peers through the key-hole size space between language and spirit and then steps aside—inviting you to look for yourself.
Praise for Sara Cahill Marron & Reasons for Étant Donnés
In Reasons for Étant Donnés, [l]ife has been reanimated in the primordial ovum of the five Mysteries of Light—Water, Marriage, Kingdom, Transfiguration, and Body. Each serves as a profound yet painful reminder of the elements that shape our reality and the forces that drive our inner, darker world.
—Esteban Oloarte, author of Transistor & Bardo
Reasons for Étant Donnés drives an intense dialogue with the reader, but also always with something else. To read is to bear witness to a compelling system at work, a curious reveal and obscure engaging in its own processes of alteration and relation. This is admirable work, stretched and emphatic without being overbearing. and when any generosity is offered, it is a succinct, pronounced humanity.
—billy cancel, author of BUTTERCUP TANTRUM MUTTON ENCORE
Haunting and haunted, Reasons for Étant Donnés is a work of genius and genus, of where we have come from, but also of ways to think about how we are linked and divided. At once a daybook of the feminine aspect, a breviary of holy motherhood, before which patriarchal structures tremble in an attempt less to understand than withstand the goddess, godless, godbody whose “iron bar (the nude’s spinal column)” stands at the center of creation and yet is the “time-giver” elsewhere seen gently swaying in “the reeds, / where you whisper/to the winds / sun is coming, / zeitgeber.”
—Michael Joyce, author of Capricorn, Venus Descendent & others
About the Author
Sara Cahill Marron is an artist working in the mediums of language and design.
Reasons for Étant Donnés and Reasons for the Long Tu’m are manuals for contemplation. Both volumes mirror the mythmaking of Catholic Church’s Rosary practice. Reasons for the Long Tu’m explores the three traditional mysteries, while Reasons for Étant Donnés focuses on the Mysteries of Light, which were added to the canon in 2002 by Pope John Paul II. To meditate on the poems collected herein, both volumes of Reasons suggest a physical root in the spiritual in order to pass through form with language. As collections of poetry, the books of Reasons lack canon or dogma. To accompany the poems, the poet has designed tactile translations of certain numbered Mysteries, which may be found at www.saracahillmarron.com.