Desert Heart

poems by Diane Roberson Douiyssi

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Desert Heart traces the human journey back home to ourselves. Gently moving between perspectives, many of the poems arise from a mystical space of inner wisdom. Their rich, natural imagery weaves together the reality of the body here on earth and the knowing of the spirit. Other poems speak to answering a calling to create art, while still others are deeply planted in the outer reality of life during this particular time-space. Readers will find this collection to be a call to recognize the yearnings of the heart and the whispers of the soul. It is a beckoning home.

POETRY / General

ISBN: 978-1-962082-93-8 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

Released January 20, 2026 | Copyright 2026

94 pages

Author Biography

Diane Roberson Douiyssi is a poet and writer currently living near the earth and peoples that nourish the world in South Dakota. She’s a lifelong writer who received her B.A. from Grinnell College. Her poems have appeared or soon will appear in Amethyst Review, Pasque Petals, song of ourself, and World Lives, Prairie Living. She’s founder of Inner Wisdom Wayfinding, where she hosts writing workshops and helps women who want to unlock their intuition and tell their stories.

Endorsements

“To read Desert Heart is to lead the thirstiest parts of you to a well full of pure, cold water. With tender insistence, Diane Roberson Douiyssi offers invitations to see more clearly, to ‘drink deep from the well of courage’ and to ‘embrace all the gifts and glory there is.’ Each page feels like a welcome mat in which you might return ‘to your own enchanted self.’ These poems are gifts.”
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of The Unfolding and host of The Poetic Path

“The poems in Diane Roberson Douiyssi’s debut book Desert Heart flow like water—from hidden to witnessed, silenced to voiced, lost and separated to united with self. They explore, unflinchingly, what’s ‘below/the surface,’ what’s ‘cracked/open,’ alive with their ‘own thrumming.’ These poems hold up ‘singular / moments’ of clarity—amid things and times ‘intended to / distract,’ turn ‘wet dirt / into a / vessel of light’ with courage and compassion, and ultimately bring us home—with ‘words / like gems.’ This book is a spiritual journey not to be missed!”
—Kate Marshall Flaherty, author of Digging and Titch, teacher of StillPoint Poetry Workshops

“In this tender and thoughtful collection, Diane Roberson Douiyssi brings the reader on a journey. The invitation to acknowledge grief, to be patient, and to take heart through a desert landscape of sunbaked clay under a hidden moon to cool streams and a wide ocean welcome. While honoring the ‘ache underneath everything,’ hope begins as a whisper, grows into an invitation to ‘cross rivers of doubt’ and finally to ‘drink deep from the well of courage.’ Without question this poet has remembered what words can do!” 
—Jayelle Lindsay, author of Tangible Evidence and Dreaming of Ed Sullivan

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