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 my efforts to keep my finger on the pulse of Fire in the Pasture, I came across two Goodreads reviews of the anthology, one by Laura Craner, the other by Dayna Patterson. Laura blogs for A Motley Vision: Mormon Literature and Culture and Dayna Patterson is a poet and the editor of Psaltery & Lyre, an online poetry mag…. Read more »
I remembered the other day that the Fall 2012 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought includes a review of Fire in the Pasture. It’s titled “The Feeling of Knowing” and was written by Brent Corcoran, a fellow poet (his name’s in the index included at the end of the anthology) and Dialogue‘s production manager. Here’s a snippet, which… Read more »
Good 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 late Paul Swenson, who passed just over a year ago. (God rest his soul.) As with the anthology, my intention… Read more »
I submitted two proposals for this year’s AML Conference, both poetry-centered, of course. Here they are: Proposal 1: Live Poetry Anthology: Mormon Poets Read (Two full sessions) Based on the success of the two poetry reading panels I organized for last year’s AML Conference, I approached my poet friends to see if there was any interest in organizing more readings… Read more »
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 »
Maybe that should read, in the voice of Robert Pinsky, “TED, have you met Mormon Poetry?” Or more specifically, though still in Pinsky’s voice, “TED, have you met Calvin Olsen, American Poet?” But I’ll get to Pinsky and Calvin soon enough. TED is no stranger to contemporary poetry. On the TED stage, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins has admitted… Read more »
Anthology Poet Highlight 45/82: Scott Cameron, “Water Has No Memory” [soundcloud id=’58705907′ playerType=’Standard’ width=’46%’ color=’#003366′] I’m enamored of Scott’s description of a restless God, mostly because “a restless God” wasn’t language I’d considered before hearing Scott read this poem at our group faculty reading in June (which is where I snagged the recording). But it struck me as apropos… Read more »
Poet Highlight: Dayna Patterson, “Our Lord Jesus in Drag” In my sonnet “On Crucifixion by J. Kirk Richards,” I use the practice of cross-dressing as an analogue for Christ condescending from godhood to put on mortality: “When God cross-dresses in death,” I say, “does / the universe blush?” In her poem, “Our Lord Jesus in Drag,” Dayna also offers a… Read more »
(Cross-posted here.) In early June, Dayna Patterson launched a new poetry publication called Psaltery & Lyre. It’s housed under the auspices of Doves & Serpents, a group blog that, Dayna told me in an email interaction, “caters to [the] sort of open-minded/misfit Mormon crowd.” In fact, the blog’s byline is “With open minds and Mormon hearts,” a statement that wants… Read more »