Category Archives: Anthology Poets

21st Century Mormon Lyricisms

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I originally read this essay, in which I officially announced the publication of Fire in the Pasture, at the 2011 conference of the Association for Mormon Letters, held March 26, 2011. I read and commented on several poems in part II of the essay, but I’m not transcribing those readings here; if you’d like to hear them, you can listen… Read more »

Is There Deep Play in Heaven? Or, Rest Well, Brother Swenson, Rest Well

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Anthology Poet Highlight 41/82: Paul Swenson, “Negative Space” [audio: http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Swenson_Negative-Space.mp3] (My reading of “Negative Space”) On the afternoon of the first resurrection, I want to sit on my sister May’s bench and read her new poems. So, maybe, if you’re still around when I go under, I wonder—could you burn me, turn me into ash, and slip me in [the… Read more »

Still Thirsting for Milk: Danielle Dubrasky’s “Legacy”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 40/82: Danielle Beazer Dubrasky, “Legacy” [audio: http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Dubrasky_Legacy.mp3] (My reading of “Legacy”) In Danielle’s sonnet, the poet explores an intergenerational relationship—and the rippling effects thereof—among three women and one man: the poet, the poet’s grandmother, the grandmother’s brother, and the poet’s great-grandmother. This complex relationship is narrated from the poet’s point of view as she observes her grandmother’s… Read more »

How Do We Do It?: Jim Richards’ “Cleave”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 39/82: Jim Richards, “Cleave” [audio: http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/tumblr_lxc4b0b5581qldxkx.mp3] (My reading of “Cleave”) I take Jim’s “it” to be, yes, sex—but also more than sex. It take it to be the much deeper state of being, the more-than-intimate connection, the dual state of oneness entered into when partners become more than lovers, lovers more than partners. Such eroticism goes much… Read more »

To Speak the Language of Animals: Marilyn Nielson’s “Sheep”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 38/82: Marilyn Nielson, “Sheep” [audio:http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/tumblr_lx79b4k4DH1qldxkx.mp3](Marilyn’s reading of “Sheep”) To speak for those who otherwise can’t, to give the unvoiced a voice, the other languaged means by which to understand and be understood by others: these seem to be fundamental functions of the gospel of Christ, at the center of which rests the atonement. In this eternally-in-force act… Read more »

The Taste of Gideon Burton’s “Salt and Blood”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 37/82: Gideon Burton, “Salt and Blood” [audio:http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/tumblr_lwm8nxiPnq1qldxkx.mp3] (My reading of “Salt and Blood”) I like the taste of “Salt and Blood.” No, I don’t live in a coven or avoid sunlight and, although I do like potato chips, NaCl isn’t really my thing. Nonetheless, Gideon’s “Salt and Blood” makes my lyric tastebuds tingle. Hence the audio, in… Read more »

My 2012 AML Conference Proposal

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I just submitted this proposal for next year’s Association for Mormon Letters Conference. The conference theme: “Going Forth Into All the World: Mormon Literature in an International Church.” I hope it tastes international enough for the organizers’ palate. * * * “Situating Sonosophy: De/constructing Alex Caldiero’s ‘Poetarium.’” Contemporary Utah poet Alex Caldiero‘s performative mode of poetry and poetics, which he… Read more »

She Comes Drenched in Associations: Sara Blaisdell’s “Ophelia”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 36/82: Sara Blaisdell, “Ophelia“ (This links to an earlier version of the poem.) [audio:http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Blaisdell_Ophelia.mp3](My reading of “Ophelia” [the anthologized version]) Sara’s “Ophelia” makes me a bit melancholy. As does the painting upon which I’m pretty sure it’s based (see above). As does Shakespeare’s lady “of ladies most deject and wretched, / That suck’d the honey of [Hamlet’s]… Read more »

The Grace and Restraint of Michael Hicks’ “Family Tree”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 35/82: Michael Hicks, “Family Tree“ [audio:http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Hicks_Family-Tree.mp3] (My reading of “Family Tree”) In “Family Tree,” Michael’s lines are achingly sparse, haiku-like, even. I find in them a seductive grace and restraint that at once fills me and leaves me wanting. Take, for example, his first section, “Adam” (quoted above). As I read it, the sibilance in the first… Read more »

Rhetorics of Grace in Sunni Wilkinson’s “Acrobats”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 34/82: Sunni Brown Wilkinson, “Acrobats” (scroll down) “Acrobats” explores rhetorics of grace. It contrasts the simple and scripted made-for-TV “piety”—an easily imitated and consumed brand commodified and encouraged by the (early morning? early afternoon?) televangelist—with the speaker’s own halting attempts to “awaken [her] faith” to something beyond play-acting, beyond miming the preacher “in front of the mirror.” The… Read more »