Tag Archives: death

Revising Mom: Markay Brown’s “Mothers in Heaven”

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Markay Brown’s “Mothers in Heaven” Post 8/31 in my A Mother Here reading series. (Click/tap here to read the poem.) Poem: http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/8-Brown_Mothers-in-Heaven.mp3 (Direct link to audio file.) Commentary: http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/8-Comment-on-Brown_Mothers-in-Heaven.mp3 (Direct link to audio file.)

#MormonPoetrySlam, Day 11 (2014): Joe Plicka reads
“Grandma Dyed Her Hair” by Rubina Rivers Forester

"Skokräm" from europeana

Read more about the Mormon Poetry Slam here and see the posting schedule here. Vote for your favorite performance here (the link will go live once all the entries have been posted). Use #MormonPoetrySlam if you post about this in your social media circles.

Mormon Poetry Slam, Day 11: Laura Craner Reads
“Feel Me” by May Swenson

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“Feel Me” by May Swenson
"Sunday Morning" from tomroper [Tom Roper] on Flickr

Here’s a link to Swenson’s poem if you’d like to follow along as Laura reads. Read more about the Mormon Poetry Slam here and see the posting schedule here. Vote for your favorite performance here (the link will go live once all the entries have been posted). Use #MormonPoetrySlam if you post about this in your social media circles.

Mormon Poetry Slam, Day 5: Dayna Patterson Reads
“Jesus is Coming Back” by Michael Hicks

"Fishing from the back of an old pickup" by mikebaird on Flickr

Here’s a link to Michael’s poem if you’d like to follow along as Dayna reads. Read more about the Mormon Poetry Slam here and see the posting schedule here. Vote for your favorite performance here (the link will go live once all the entries have been posted). Use #MormonPoetrySlam if you post about this in your social media circles.

Remembering Paul

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Today is the anniversary of Paul Swenson’s birth. If my calculations are correct, he was born in 1935 and would have turned 78 this year. I’ve thought about him off and on since he passed, mostly because I know that at the time of his death he was working with Dream Garden Press to publish his second poetry collection. According… Read more »

In the Beginning, the End: Some Initial Thoughts on Susan Elizabeth Howe’s Salt

This past Saturday, my review copy of Susan Elizabeth Howe‘s new book, Salt, arrived. I’ll be reviewing it for A Motley Vision and expect to have my essay completed and posted sometime in the next month or two, but in the meantime I wanted to post my initial response to the collection. While I haven’t yet read beyond the first… Read more »

Poetry of the Void: Melissa Dalton-Bradford’s “House for Rent”

Anthology Poet Highlight 44/82: Melissa Dalton-Bradford, “House for Rent” (Scroll down, both there and here) Language came to me deeply when my paternal grandfather started to decline, when his body began to give in to the detritus of age, when I was faced with his loss. I’ve noted elsewhere that “our words, we hope, will ward off death. Looking into… Read more »

Mirroring Mortality: Calvin Olsen’s Haiku #100

Anthology Poet Highlight 43/82: Calvin Olsen, Haiku #100 I’ve been fascinated with haiku since I started writing poetry and for a time I, like Calvin, used haiku as a springboard into writing longer poems. I think I was drawn to the form because it’s short, yes, but also because there’s a great deal of intricacy at work in the image-heavy… Read more »

Claire Åkebrand: October is Plush, but Only Fleetingly So

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Anthology Poet Highlight 42/82: Claire Åkebrand, “October Plush” (scroll down) Like the violet at its center, the texture of Claire’s “October Plush” is lush, but only fleetingly so. The poet runs her words like fingers over the flower’s petals, pausing in her passing by to notice the beauty of the transient subject at her feet. For although the violet can’t… Read more »

“The Points at which My Loves Fell from Me”: Philip White’s The Clearing

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Anthology Poet Highlight 22/82: Philip White, The Clearing In this book dedicated to his late father, mother, and wife, Philip invites us to feel our way around in the soul-space excavated by love and life, loss and death. Framed, then, as elegiac meditations on the loss of persons beloved, the poet lingers on these moments of departure—what the speaker in… Read more »