“The Goddess of Burning Hair: 37 Poems Giving Voice to Gaia the Great Mother”

with Mary Mackey

Thursday,  September 10, 2026 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time  

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The Goddess of Burning Hair is the first complete collection of Mary Mackey’s goddess poems. Written from 1972 to 2025, the thirty-seven poems in this book emerge from a lifetime Mackey has spent studying, listing to, respecting, and giving voice to the spirit of Gaia the Great Mother in all her forms. Stunningly imaginative, beautifully written, intensely lyrical, mysterious, and sometimes powerfully prophetic, these poems take us into worlds both ancient and not-yet born. 

Here you will find poems about goddesses from Europe like Medusa and Aphrodite; Afro-Brazilian goddesses like Iemanjá, and Yansã; goddesses Mackey has invented like The Goddess of Burning Hair; goddesses who have created themselves and goddesses who are a combination of the research of scholars like Marija Gimbutas and Mackey’s own imagination taken from her four novels about the Goddess-worshipping/Earth-centered cultures of Neolithic Europe. You will encounter prophets like Cassandra who speak warnings no one believes; and last, but by no means least, poems that celebrate those moments when the power of the Divine enters us, moments when we mortals become transformed into something greater and more powerful, and the Earth our Great Mother speaks through us.

“Reading Mary Mackey’s poems in this book is like listening to the Delphic Pythia utter her prophecies from her sacred chasm. With stark fluidity Mary exemplifies the poet as prophet. Her poems are rich and spare—like haikus.” Cristina Biaggi, Author of Habitations of the Great Goddess

Mary Mackey became a writer by running high fevers; visiting the ruins of the neolithic, goddess-worshiping cultures of Old Europe; tramping through tropical jungles; being swarmed by army ants, and reading. Her novels and poems have been praised by by Marija Gimbutas, Marge Piercy, Jane Hirshfield, Maxine Hong Kingston, Annie Finch, Judy Grahn, Cristina Biaggi, Vicki Noble, Starhawk, Wendel Berry, Thomas Moore, Rafael Jesús González, and Pat Conroy for their beauty, precision, gripping plots, originality, and extraordinary range. She is the author of 10 collections of poetry, including Sugar Zone, winner of a PEN Award; and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for Best Book Published by a Small Press; as well as 14 novels, including The  New York Times bestseller A Grand Passion and the Earthsong Series, four novels about the Goddess-worshiping people of Old Europe. In December 2026 and January 2027 Open Road Media will reissue the Earthsong Series novels in new editions in both paper and electronic form. The Goddess of Burning Hair, the first complete collection of Mackey’s goddess poems, will be published by Women’s Spirituality Studies Press in September 2026.

 

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Upcoming Salon

Scholar Salon 102:

Thursday, September 24 at 3 PM Eastern Time

Title TBA

with Dawn Work-Makinne

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event.