Fish Stories
March 16, 2018Although it had never been formally declared or written in cursive on a piece of parchment, Jolene understood her place in the family hierarchy. She was right there between the ancient golden retriever and the…
DiaBLOGue
The Leg
March 16, 2018Mud to the horse’s knees,
miles with only the moon
and then his patient screaming,
the leg red and swollen
and only amputation to offer.
He would not do this again,
Internal Affairs
March 16, 2018You’d like to maintain innocence—
The mushroom path of fingerprints
Impressing your distinct presence
Now entered into evidence;
Blue Glass
March 16, 2018Of course that’s seen
behind a screen. The lake
by day is patternless gray,
Abracadabra
March 16, 2018The missionaries stay in an old apartment.
The shades are yellow as runny yolk.
The afternoon sun is beating to get in.
Bum Bam Boom
March 16, 2018After school the Greer boy and I
run home past the bottling plant
where I glimpse through the plate-glass
the endless capping of mouths.
As a semi chugs past, we notice
the trailer looks funny—cocked back
Ghost Towns
March 16, 2018George Borrow, an English travel writer, descended from the hills one evening in 1854 to report on Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, at that time the busiest iron smelting and coal town in the common wealth. I imagine he used a walking stick, picking his way through the mountain brush of the South Wales hills to a valley of light and a hillside of blazes. On reaching the valley, he identified the source of brilliance to be lava-like material that zigzagged down the hill above him.
In Lieu of History: Mormon Monuments and the Shaping of Memory
March 16, 2018As a missionary in France and Belgium, I frequently encountered devout Catholics who would describe their journeys to Lourdes or Fatima. “Ah, oui! J’ai vu la grotte, la grotte où la Vierge s’est apparue à Bernadette! J’étais lá!” While these humble women, dressed in robin-egg-blue housecoats, could not bring home a piece of the cross, they could show me their holy water, rosary beads, or skinned knees, emblems of their devotion and commitment. Their pilgrimage was no trite tourist trip. They didn’t watch the spectacle with ironic detachment, rolling their eyes at the commodification of sacred space. Non! They walked on holy ground. I nodded and smiled. But I confess that the stories amused me. Holy water indeed.
Wives and Other Women: Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Lives of John Q. Cannon, Frank J. Cannon, and Abraham H. Cannon
March 16, 2018John Q. Cannon, Frank J. Cannon, and Abraham H. Cannon were the three eldest sons of George Q. Cannon, the man viewed by historians as second only to Brigham Young in prominence in late nineteenth-century Mormon Utah. George Q. Cannon was a man of unusual talents and skills, whose far-flung influence extended to ecclesiastical, political, literary, journalistic, and business matters in Utah and the West, and each of the three sons inherited much of their father’s brilliance, culture, and charisma.
Joseph Smith’s Letter from Liberty Jail as an Epistolary Rhetoric
March 16, 2018Joseph Smith may not have ever spoken the word “rhetoric,” but his participation in juvenile debating societies probably brought him some contact with rhetoric’s long tradition.Regardless of his knowledge of this tradition, it is obvious that Smith knew how to persuade people through speech and writing. In addition, his writings instruct readers about how to persuade in a manner consistent with the restored gospel of Mormonism.