Fire in the Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets
. . . the bounty of [this] anthology reminded me of Christ’s generosity in feeding the five thousand. Christ took real substances—a little bread, two small fish—and he created from them . . . food that nourished the people and made it possible for them to return to their lives both physically and spiritually renewed. Poets take matter (language, emotion, thought, experience) and make of that matter a new creation, a work of art that did not exist before the poet organized it, a work that has the potential (each poet hopes) to nourish—to make readers see what they did not see before, to offer insight, to create empathy, to provoke thought, or to express beauty, soundness, depth. To offer abundance in place of scarcity.
–Susan Elizabeth Howe
Random Posts
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Doug Talley’s “Finding Place”: Consider. Simply Consider.
17 October 2011 5:19 PM | No CommentsAnthology Poet Highlight 1/82: Doug Talley, “Finding Place” (My reading of “Finding Place”) From my preface to Fire in the Pasture: Doug Talley’s poem, “Finding Place,” . . . speaks to the intersection of religious, spiritual, and moral experience with...
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Warren Hatch’s Mapping the Bones of the World: “An Economy of Grace”
29 October 2011 10:44 AM | No CommentsAnthology Poet Highlight 13/82: Warren (Scott) Hatch, Mapping the Bones of the World Although it might seem contradictory to suggest that Mapping the Bones of the World, a collection of long narrative poems, is economical—as if the poet had composed...
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![Anthology Poet Highlight 24/82: Timothy Liu, “The Tree that Knowledge Is“ (scroll down) This short poem illustrates Tim’s double-voice as both a gay and deeply religious poet. As Bryan Waterman observes, “A number of signifiers [in the poem] resonate with...](http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Flowering-Branch-36x36.jpg "The Lust that Flowers on Timothy Liu’s “Tree that Knowledge Is”")
The Lust that Flowers on Timothy Liu’s “Tree that Knowledge Is”
11 November 2011 11:52 AM | No CommentsAnthology Poet Highlight 24/82: Timothy Liu, “The Tree that Knowledge Is“ (scroll down) This short poem illustrates Tim’s double-voice as both a gay and deeply religious poet. As Bryan Waterman observes, “A number of signifiers [in the poem] resonate with...
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Kimberly Johnson’s Ode To a Woman’s “Most Matronly Adornment”
30 October 2011 8:00 AM | No CommentsPoet Highlight: Kimberly Johnson, “Ode on My Episiotomy“ Yep. That’s right. Episiotomy. A woman’s “most matronly adornment,” as Kim has it. What better reason, then, to write an “Ode on My Episiotomy.” (Not that I have one—not that I’ll ever...
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The Blessing and Curse of Michael R. Collings’ “Legacy”
24 October 2011 8:00 AM | No CommentsAnthology Poet Highlight 8/82: Michael R. Collings, “Legacy“ Michael’s longish poem, “Legacy,” breaches the subject of family in a way that neither sentimentalizes the good nor that glosses over the difficult. This is apparent in the first lines in which...
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Jim Richards Archive
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How Do We Do It?: Jim Richards’ “Cleave”
Posted on January 5, 2012 | No CommentsAnthology Poet Highlight 39/82: Jim Richards, “Cleave” (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...
