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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Ah, To Live for Dizziness: Mark Bennion’s “Still Life”
22 October 2011 5:05 PM | 1 CommentAnthology Poet Highlight 6/82: Mark Bennion, “Still Life“ (Scroll down) Mark Bennion’s first collection, Psalm & Selah is a great example of what a good poet can do in response to the Book of Mormon, which is to explore the...
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Sampling Fire
06 March 2013 11:24 AM | 1 CommentGood news: Fire in the Pasture’s publisher, Peculiar Pages, recently released a sampler of poems from the anthology (formatted by the very capable Elizabeth Beeton of B10Mediaworx). It presents poetry from twenty of Fire’s poets, including a poem by the...
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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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Rhetorics of Grace in Sunni Wilkinson’s “Acrobats”
08 December 2011 12:32 AM | No CommentsAnthology 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...
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Alex Caldiero’s “Seeing a Body”: The Shape Sound Makes
06 November 2011 8:05 AM | No CommentsAnthology Poet Highlight 20/82: Alex Caldiero, “Seeing a Body” This poem, which I’ve taken to calling “Seeing a Body” for ease of reference, melds performance and content in order to compel an awareness of the body’s connection to the earth...
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Mark Bennion Archive
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21st Century Mormon Lyricisms
Posted on April 10, 2012 | No CommentsI 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... -
Ah, To Live for Dizziness: Mark Bennion’s “Still Life”
Posted on October 22, 2011 | 1 CommentAnthology Poet Highlight 6/82: Mark Bennion, “Still Life“ (Scroll down) Mark Bennion’s first collection, Psalm & Selah is a great example of what a good poet can do in response to the Book of Mormon, which is to explore the...
