The publication of Fire in the Pasture, an anthology of poetry by LDS poets, calls for a celebration, a reading, and a discussion of where Mormon poetics may be headed in the twenty-first century. We’ll hear from poets featured in the anthology and consider its significance in LDS literary history. R. A. Christmas, Tyler Chadwick, …
Speaker: Dennis Clark
SL10223: Spaceship Earth
Shortly before our 40th wedding anniversary, I realized that Valerie had been cleaning our toilets for 40 years—and that I had let her. I felt that I should not have, and I resolved to do it from then on. From that realization sprang the observation at the heart of this talk: one of the marks …
SL10326: Joseph Smith’s Meditation on Power— Clear Evidence of a Maturing Faith
Brigham Young said “Joseph Smith was a poet, and poets are not like other men…. they catch the swift thought of God and reveal it to us.” Joseph’s place as a nineteenth-century writer is just beginning to be appreciated. This session will look at one aspect of one of the dictations in which he generates …
Devotional. Baring My Testimony: Adventures In An Old Court
Devotional. Baring My Testimony: Adventures In An Old Court Bearing testimony? Baring testimony? Bears and testimony? It is not a simple matter to bear testimony, let alone understand what is asked of us, and especially difficult for a child to grasp. To whom do we testify? Of what do we testify? Why must everyone testify? …
Poets and the Prophets
While it may be true, as he said of himself, that no one knew Joseph Smith’s history, poets from the early days of the Restoration have attempted to capture the Prophet through the power of poetic language. This session consists of readings of poets from W. W. Phelps and Eliza R. Snow to modern Mormons …
PACIFISM, PRIESTHOOD, AND POWER
In this paper, I examine closely two events in service of creating a strong foundation for Mormon pacifism: (1) Joseph Smith’s writing of a letter from Liberty Jail, in which the Lord rebukes him for praying for vengeance on the Missourians; and (2) Smith’s assassination, toward which he went more like a lion than a …
THE GRAMMAR OF GLAMOUR, EROTICIZING THE ORDINARY
THE GRAMMAR OF GLAMOUR, EROTICIZING THE ORDINARY Pornography traffics in the ordinary. There are few things more common in human life than sexual relations. Sex is, to the species, what food is to the individual: its continuation, the guarantor of its survival. And, as with food, a cult of the exotic surrounds sex: glamour is …
‘O GOD WHERE ART THOU?’ Mormon Psalms
‘O GOD WHERE ART THOU?’ Mormon Psalms David Anderson, Julie K. Curtis, Dennis Clark
‘AND HE HAD COMPASSION ON THEM’ and GOD, COMMA, JUSTICE OF
‘AND HE HAD COMPASSION ON THEM’ and GOD, COMMA, JUSTICE OF Rev. Carol Marsh, Dennis Clark