November 2011
24 posts
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“My next-door neighbor’s going to hell.
I know because his soul
has hung on his...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 32/82: Laura Nielson Baxter, “Take Care of Your Soul—It’s Flapping in the Breeze”
“Take Care” is an exercise in absurdity. I mean, a neighbor airing his soul on a clothesline like recently washed laundry then leaving it to dry for a few...
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“Immersed in liquid light, like an insect
quenched in the amber’s flow, its body...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 31/82: Tyler Chadwick, “Submerged: Two Variations on Serrano’s Piss Christ” (on page 72)
My rumination on writing “Submerged” and some thoughts on a Mormon poetics:
The central method of gaining knowledge we have is our language. I do not think...
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If the poets are happy...
I have the greatest respect for each of the poets I invited to be a part of Fire in the Pasture. So when I hear they’re happy with the book, I get a little giddy. Because, hey, if the poets (brooding lot that we are) are happy, well, something must be very right with the world.
Here’s what two contributors, Darlene and Deja, have said recently:
Darlene: Fire in the Pasture is...
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“I’m sorry that I killed your son
I did not know he was your son
I only knew he...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 29/82: Jonathon Penny, “Confession, after battle”
At first glance, “Confession” seems a simplistic poem: the poet repeats the same structure for four, essentially five, stanzas, changing only a word per stanzaic turn. The structure is thus something of a...
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“Fire in the Pasture is such a treasure-house of riches that it deserves all of...”
– Michael R. Collings—author, poet, literary critic, and bibliographer, and a former professor of creative writing and literature at Pepperdine University—in his short review (Fire’s first), “Fire in the Pasture: Gleaning After the Harvest”
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“What is this soft array of leaves and light
But morning? The sky opens with the...”
– (Mormon) Poet Highlight 3: Clinton F. Larson, “The City of Joseph”
While “The City of Joseph” is obviously meant as inspirational verse (especially considering its venue of publication), I don’t find it sentimental in anyway. In fact, the language and imagery and the way...
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“[T]he sun and the moon
set the world in a swoon
and clothed it in meadow and...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 28/82: Danny Nelson, “Creation”
Danny is a poet of considerable range and talent. He works deftly in poetic forms from light verse (as here, here, here, here, here, and here) to the free-verse dramatic monologue (here) to forms situated between (here, here, and...
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“amicus, amici, amico, amicum, amico,
Amice.
The window, with its morning salty...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 27/82: Arwen Taylor, “Lingua Doctrinae”
In this poem, Arwen’s lyric is crisp and pointed. And her poetic engagement with words is a means of “linguistic worship” centered on the conjugation and communion of bodies through rituals of the tongue. Speaking to an...
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“Afraid
but not afraid
to let her touch me,
we’ll undress
slowly like...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 26/82: Will Bishop, “When I Do Go On My Honeymoon”
Will captures the thrill—and the anxiety—of embarking on such a (pro)creative journey in this poem. He begins by engaging a paradox experienced by unsuspecting virgins when they sexually collide atop the marriage...
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“I counted them as they
came—sons and daughters
who didn’t count.
I counted...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 25/82: E.S. (Sarah) Jenkins, “Weary”
In her moving elegiac poem, “Weary,” Sarah highlights a less than pleasant aspect of the woman’s (pro)creative relationship with God: childbirth and the toll it can take on the mother’s mind. Speaking with language that sneaks...
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At Least One Dentist Approves This Message
Or, Poetry’s Value In Uncertain Times
Or, Go Read a Poem, Dangit! It Might Just Save Your Soul
Take Kathy DeFord’s word for it: She’s a dentist and a mother and a payer of bills. And her take on poetry is really quite practical—and, frankly, valuable, especially when we live in such an anxiety-filled age. After she recently acquired—and read some of—Fire in...
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“I do not want to die. Not for love.
Nor a vision of that tree I cannot...”
– FitP 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 a Mormon audience: God’s ’still...
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“I have no Adam to innocent me,
only consolation cannolis and a damned
garden...”
– (Mormon) Poet Highlight 2: Emily Stanfill, “Then I Became Eve”
What strikes me most about the poem, first, is the way the poet “verbs” the adjective innocent, using it not to describe her Eve—-as in, “I am/was innocent/an innocent person”—-but as a...
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“Sometimes it seems that everything’s dislodged,
slipping, and all we really...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 22/82: Philip White, “Six O’Clock Flight to the Interment”
From “The Points at which My Loves Fell From Me,” my capsule review of Philip’s first collection, The Clearing:
In this book dedicated to his late father, mother, and wife, Philip invites us to...
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“Harpooning—the Undoubtable
Shot from your sea-swept eyes,
Frothing mouths—...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 21/82: Marie Brian, “Spindrift”
When I first read “Spindrift,” it caught me off-guard. The first thing that struck me first about “the poem is its (Emily) Dickinsonian style: seemingly random, mid-sentence capitalizations, the hyphens, the brevity....
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“I could build a house here and let go the dream
of the swaying of camels, the...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 19/82: Darlene Young, “How Long”
Humanity’s stories are often filled with desire for something more, with homesickness, a wanderlust that leads characters to leave home and to enter the wilderness—whether physical, psychological, or emotional—in search of true...
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FitP Poet Highlight 18/82: William DeFord,...
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“I wear her name
and a two carat diamond
which, like a heavy rock of salt...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 17/82: Sally Stratford, “Inheritance”
The most striking thing to me about this poem are the images that suggest being clothed/covered/dressed in one’s legacy; or, in the poet’s words, that imply “wear[ing a] name” (line 1) that’s been...
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“When I came in at last,
Breezes still running
Over my skin,
My hair cool as...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 16/82: Patricia Karamesines, “Evening Drive”
The lyric quality of “Evening Drive” pulls me into the narrative, placing me in the (rhetorical) vehicle beside the poet and her companion as they drive down a springing lane, both traversing the same...
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“Yes, the zucchinis grow heavy and wicked,
and yes, a porcupine parses the...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 15/82: Lance Larsen, “Vineyard”
From “A Delicious Lapping,” my capsule review of Lance’s second collection, In All Their Animal Brilliance.
American poet Lola Haskins blurbed about Lance’s second collection that “the book stands out” in the field... 