BYU Studies Quarterly just published my review essay on two recent poetry collections: Susan Elizabeth Howe’s Salt (Signature Books, 2013) and Lance Larsen’s Genius Loci (University of Tampa Press, 2013). Both collections are well-worth your time and they sustain and reward multiple readings. Here’s an excerpt, right from the middle of my review, to whet your lyric appetite: Mormon theology… Read more »
Now that the busyness of Christmas has passed and the final performance in the 2nd Annual #MormonPoetrySlam has posted (see the event archive here), it’s time to determine the winner of the Audience Choice Award. For your consideration and reviewing pleasure, here are the eighteen entries, listed in order of appearance (you may need to hit “Read next page” at… Read more »
Here’s a link to the poem (you’ll have to scroll down–it’s the last poem in the article) if you’d like to follow along as Jonathon 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… Read more »
On Monday, May 1 Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert named Lance Larsen—award-winning poet, professor, and Fire in the Pasture contributor—Utah’s new Poet Laureate. A role initiated in 1997, the “Poet Laureate is a Governor-appointed advocate for literature and the arts throughout the state” (see here). I’m gathering some more articulate thoughts on Lance’s well-deserved appointment (to be posted next week),… Read more »
Anthology Poet Highlight 15/82: Lance Larsen, In All Their Animal Brilliance American poet Lola Haskins blurbed about Lance’s second collection that “the book stands out” in the field of contemporary American poetry for at least two reasons: first, because “it travels—from a talisman in the first poem to a vineyard in the last, in which metaphors of growth and renewal… Read more »