Fire in the Water
April 3, 2018Barely a man
he stands trembling
water lapping at thighs in cotton white
right arm to the square
DiaBLOGue
A Quest for Understanding | Anna Jean Backus, Mountain Meadows Witness: The Life and Times of Bishop Philip Klingensmith
April 3, 2018At last, an absorbing sequel to Juanita Brooks’s momentous work, The Mountain Meadows Massacre. Just when Mormon church leaders and scholars alike were ready to accept that Brooks has the last, if not final, word…
How the History Is Told | William G. Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom: History and Autobiography of John Lowe Butler, A Mormon Frontiersman
April 3, 2018“Whatever you do, do not prettify me!” This declaration by Walt Whitman to his friend and biographer, Horace Traubel, might have also been in William Hartley’s mind as he finished writing an in-depth history of…
Revealing Insight | Norman R. Bowen, preface and notes, and Mary Karen Bowen Solomon, profile, A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872-73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal
April 3, 2018The publication of Elizabeth Kane’s journal for the months from December 1872 to March 1873 at St. George, Utah, was made possible by the Tanner Trust Fund of the University of Utah Marriott Library. (The…
A Scholarly Feast of Contemporary Mormonism | Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton, and Lawrence A. Young, eds., Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives
April 3, 2018The editors of this book have assembled a plethora of outstanding social science scholarship. The works selected are astute, readable, and thought-provoking. The book is filled with research in almost prose form, as well as…
The Body of the Lord’s Fair Night
April 3, 2018Florence Gradon was a good-looking girl, but her looks were nine out of ten parts spirit. Her skirts swung just so, while she danced, her brown hair liked its ribbons fine, and the great good…
Oasis
April 3, 2018At dusk, the pool waits in silence,
found by your feet after you rip up
the map. Suddenly in the tangled grasses
and twilight the birds stop calling,
and the trees finger your face.
An Episode from the Memoirs of Elder Thomas, A Somewhat Less than Good and Faithful Servant
April 3, 2018[Tuesday, November 19.] Brother Duvalier—the branch president—had us out to his farm for dinner tonight. Which is to say, he had us out to milk cows with his farmhand while his wife made us dinner. …
Desert Bloom
April 3, 2018There are no maybes in the desert;
you have to be lizard-quick or shrivel and die.
The Rio Grande is muddy from its occasional pause,
here where survival is yes or no.
Editing William Clayton and the Politics of Mormon History
April 3, 2018Editing William Clayton, James B. Allen
A Response: The Politics of Mormon History, George D. Smith
A Reply, James B. Allen
A Rejoinder, George D. Smith