October 2011
23 posts
8 tags
“At the school carnival,
I tow a plunger.
Its rubber bowl bouncing
off the...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 14/82: Deja Earley, “Housewife for Halloween”
Deja has published a number of poems on the web (see here, here, and here for starters). But I thought “Housewife for Halloween” was an appropriate choice for the day. I like it 1) for its...
6 tags
“O! the dream of the dropped stitch! the loophole
through which that unruly...”
– (Mormon) Poet Highlight 1*: 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...
8 tags
“On the wetlands, in that dead willow, the redtail hawks settle,
their bodies a...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 13/82: Warren (Scott) Hatch, “The Fine and Dying Art of Shaping Light into Words” (scroll down)
From “An Economy of Grace,” my capsule review of Scott’s 2007 collection, Mapping the Bones of the World:
Although it might seem contradictory to...
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“I want to be
enfolded by you, overwhelmed,
flooded, wrung out by you,...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 12/82: Laraine Wilkins: “Make Yourself at Home” (scroll down)
While Laraine Wilkins has passed on and while I never knew her (though we did share a few brief emails when she was editor of Irreantum: A Review of Mormon Literature and Film and I’d submitted...
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“Fire in the Pasture —
a singular education in excellent poetry.”
– Moriah Jovan, e-book formatter extraordinaire.
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“you called your Eden
desert, immutable wayplace
of God, pulsing, still.
I...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 11/82: Kristen Eliason, “arms upon arms to an earth”
“Kristen Eliason’s delicious prose and poetry drive a hard bargain between elegy and Japanese wabi-sabi.” So says whoever wrote the bio note on this event page announcing a Kristen Eliason...
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“At dusk I see
Denali’s shadow from my balcony,
moose eat fuchsias by...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 9/82: Karen Kelsay, “Autumn Ambivalence”
From, “Blooms Flourish in Spite of Her,” my capsule review of Karen’s chapbook, In Spite of Her:
In her chapbook of narrative poems, In Spite of Her, Karen explores the relationship between a middle-aged...
8 tags
“By all accounts my great-great-great
was
a thorough-going bastard
or so...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 8/82: Michael Collings, “Legacy”
Michael Collings’ 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 the poet...
7 tags
“Do not steal my fire and ice, make null
my trial, void it with another name...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 7/82: Elizabeth (Cranford) Garcia, “The Semantics of Blessings”
Liz’s unrhymed, free-variation on the sonnet, “The Semantics of Blessings,” took an Honorable Mention in Segullah’s 2007 Poetry Contest. Cranford also took First Place in this...
8 tags
“At dusk we lived for dizziness,
a quick roll down the backyard slope—
...”
– FitP 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 stories many Mormons know so well in ways that shed new...
2 tags
“A poem can teach us to pay attention to how language affects (and at times,...”
– Iris, Lantern Review Blog
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“Good child, he takes the method books,
ascends, descends the scales.
One day...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 5/82: Marilyn Bushman-Carlton, “Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major”(Scroll down)
Music, as poetry, has power to bind us through and with the body’s rhythms. Marilyn Bushman-Carlton provides a case in point with “Mozart’s Violin...
10 tags
“You are counting the dark exit of crows
in the rear view mirror, or from the...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 4/82: Neil Aitken, “In the Long Dream of Exile”
From “How We are Saved,” my capsule review of Neil’s book, The Lost Country of Sight:
“Aitken’s first collection begins with a poem—’In the Long Dream of Exile’—that marks the...
7 tags
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“Today your exit is history,
a receding roar,
but I was there that afternoon,...”
– FitP Poet Highlight 2/82: Terresa Wellborn, “Welcoming the Epilogue,” Inscape (Winter 2011)
Terresa’s voice is distinctive, clear, and strong and her phrasing is often striking. Notice, for instance, the alliteratives that hold this stanza together and that propel the tongue...
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“[Fire in the Pasture] is of enormous cultural significance[.] …
I have...”
– Eric W Jepson, A Motley Vision: Mormon Arts and Letters: http://bit.ly/qtyBTa
4 tags
“[T]he highly-anticipated collection of contemporary Mormon poetry, Fire in the...”
– Scott Hales, The Low-Tech World: Exploring Mormon Literature: http://j.mp/rrz3X4
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“Peculiar Page’s landmark poetry anthology Fire in the Pasture[:] an exciting...”
– Patricia Karamesines, Wilderness Interface Zone: http://bit.ly/nOUXsD 