Contemporary Mormon Poems

Helen Candland Stark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Veneta Leatham Nielsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Arthur Henry King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Marden J. Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Edward L. Hart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Iris Parker Corry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Clinton F. Larson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Emma Lou Thayne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39
John Sterling Harris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
David L. Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Mary Lythgoe Bradford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Donnell Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Karl C. Sandberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Lewis Horne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76
Eugene England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Karl Keller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83
Ronald Wilcox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86
Elouise Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Robert A. Rees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Loretta Randall Sharp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103
Marilyn McMeen Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
Vernice Wineera Pere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Sally T. Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Penny Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124
R.A. Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
Carol Lynn Pearson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134
Margaret Rampton Munk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138
Dixie Lee Partridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146
Stephen Gould . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152
Colin B. Douglas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Bruce W. Jorgensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159
Dennis Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Clifton Jolley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Anita Tanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Kathy Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171
Steven William Graves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175
Randall L. Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Linda Sillitoe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Susan Howe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193
Mary Blanchard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197
Rob Hollis Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200
M.D. Palmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Stephen Orson Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Richard Tice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
Karen Marguerite Moloney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214
P. Karen Todd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219
Patricia Gunter Karamesines . . . . . . . . . . . . .221
John W. Schouten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .225
Laura Hamblin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229
Lance Larsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .233
Philip White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
Danielle Beazer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
Timothy Liu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Hymns and Songs

Paul L. Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Kathryn R. Ashworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254
Marilyn McMeen Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .255
Karen Lynn Davidson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Edward L. Hart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Donnell Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259
Bruce W. Jorgensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260
Clara W. McMaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .262
Reid N. Nibley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .262
John Sears Tanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Emma Lou Thayne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Friends and Relations

John Davies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267
Brewster Ghiselin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .270
Leslie Norris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
William Stafford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
May Swenson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Editor's Commentary

New Tradition, by Eugene England . . . . . . . .285
New Directions, by Dennis Clark . . . . . . . . .289

Notes on Poets, and Acknowledgements . . 293

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Preface

As editors, we have divided the poets represented in this anthology into those born before 1940 and those born after 1939. Of the two of us, Eugene England (born 1933) selected the poems from the earlier group, those whose authors are fifty or older and who established the new tradition of Mormon poetry described in his commentary. Dennis Clark (born 1945) selected works from the younger poets. As the initial selection was made, we reviewed each other's choices to arrive at the final determination. We chose poems based on our judgment of their quality but tried to make allowance in that judgment for the variety of achievement in the poets. The works of fifty-three poets are included in this collection. They are arranged by the author's year of birth, oldest first, with birthdates ranging from 1901 to 1965. Readers wishing to study the poems in chronological order will find the dates of first publication for most of the poems in the section "Notes on Poets, and Acknowledgements." Poems not listed there by title are published here for the first time.

Two other sections have been added to this collection. The first, "Hymns and Songs," shows some of the contemporary skill and diversity in the kind of verse that represents the earliest Mormon poetic impulse. The second, "Friends and Relations," offers examples of poetry about Mormon country and the Mormon experience by noted poets who have lived among us. It provides some standards for comparison, but more importantly it honors first-rate poets who stand in various kinds of friendship and relationship to the poems in this new tradition.

The bibliographies at the end provide sources and publication histories for the poems included here and a sampling of other titles by each poet which, for reasons of space, we could not include. They also contain a good selection of important secondary sources and special issues of journals focusing on poetry.

One of the worst sins in art is committed by those who edit anthologies in order to publish their own work. But we believe that the best poetry anthologies are produced by poets themselves. Since both of us have been involved, as editors and writers, in the new tradition and its new directions sampled here, we decided to include our own work. Each of us made the selection of the other's poems.

Like most editors and anthologists, we have enjoyed enthusiastic help, encouragement, advice, and suggestions from poets and readers. We thank Robert A. Rees for getting the project going; Lorie Winder Stromberg, Susan Howe, and Elizabeth Shaw Smith for compiling lists of poets, photocopying poems from many magazines, soliciting submissions, and in general reaping the grain; and Barbara L. Carlson and Jill Thompson for data entry and handling final correspondence. The work is very much theirs; the faults remain our own.

* * * * *

L O R E T T A . R A N D A L L . S H A R P

* * * * *

S T E P H E N . W I L L I A M . G R A V E S

The Dunes at Truro

1.

It seemed that everyone ached to eat fried clams.
Brokers stuck in offices bitched and whined.
In bottlenecks that straddled frequent woods
the air was hard to swallow and everywhere
the amplified chirr of bugs jarred.
At noon the horizon sent up a trial-
balloon-sized cloud which grew so blue
we only supposed we saw it pass.
We were deep enroute when the expletives
of gulls played above the black butter of road.
Only then the nudge of air reeked kelp
as it had reeked lacquer, vinyl, blistered tires.
A corridor of stunted scrub gave out
at a fenced plateau and the innuendo of the sea.
And the cantilevered mist hammered overhead
like birds unnested by the mildly fractious waves
hung in heat paralysis. Our feet were harmed
first with incandescent sand then pained
by ocean swirl. About us the coast stood
replete in mounds of dazzled quartz
though we saw only women, contoured
with expectation, hinged in lime green suits.

2.

The tongue that finagler has stumbled upon
salt. A summer's worth of heat-charged ocean air
alights now during days of cooler weather.
The spring-laid shingles, once blond and confluent
are gray, streaked, and slightly withdrawn. Rain moves
the salt within their skins as well as off,
pickling woodstuffs. The tongue makes one of its four
pronouncements of taste, and inside the porch
with its jalousied windows for a season
salt is held to be domesticated.

3.

Equinox. Against the doors of neighbors
still here, votive maize, as if one grew
autumn leaves from bad teeth. Clairvoyance.
The late afternoon sun standing in shallow
pools of toppled daiquiris atop the dunes
at Truro. The sands bronzed. The overhead
pale, beset with clouds that wheel and fold
in light diluted much with cold vast gulfs
of air. The cottages repeat themselves
along the bay like lavishly made up dolls
left behind like seasonal friends, amid
lost souvenirs, those cheerless, forearm-length
fish which seasonly succumb in rows that mark
the last high tide. The alliances of birds
retracing the broad Gulf Stream. Weatherizing.
Laying in wood against our nearing
uncertainties. Reckoning human chill
in cords and calling our feckless thoughts
back from their scalloped steps along the dunes.

4.

At noon the wind gave out its siren sound
and sullen forces swept across the headlands
of the Cape and moved inland. Quickly
the tiny corridors of roads were filled
with anxious traffic and so too, quickly clogged.
Finally, we were on foot, our movements
miscued: hilarious pratfalls, arabesques.
But the snow came harder, horizontal,
uncontrolled until the lights of Wellfleet
were extinguished. We took our bearings
from abandoned cars perilously spaced,
pointing wherever their spins had come
to stand. The bitter air took up the sea
at land's end and shattered the great bar
at Chatham, flooding the darkened land
with darkened brine. Even our own limbs had grown
remote. We feared our body's weight. Some sat
upon the sand whom we forced to stand again.
From the distant overhead in the voices
of the drowned, something like our names
was roared and roared. The snowfall choked
the dunes at Truro, snows thick
to their being black, hissing at our knees.

* * * * *

M A R Y . B L A N C H A R D

Liar

I love your lies
they are so transparent
and convincing

carefully wrapped
handed to me like a package
of hotdogs exposed

in neat obscene little
exhibitionist rows
next to the balogna

when I bite into
one of them it tastes
like boeuf bouillabaisse

because I know
the difference
between true lies and
lies that are true

* * * * *

L A U R A . H A M B L I N

From the Next Weird Sister

It matters not that my ankles are shapely and graceful,
Or that once, and I remember it well,
They said I had a splendid head of hair—
Perhaps the loveliest in all of Scotland.

One need not be a beldam to be a witch.
It takes only a desperate malignant need
To which there can be no relinquishment.
Be saucy and over-bold.
Your charms enough will change you.

For now the sun is setting,
And our clan meets again.
Here on the heath we spread the spoils of our battle,
And offer them to vacant, sable skies.
The fair men have called foul fair
And the foul men have called fair foul.
The fog is lifting,
But the filth in the air still remains.

Sometimes I wish I were a birth-strangled babe.
Then at least my finger would have a price.
And I might be understood
Or might understand the unknown powers.
But I was destined to live,
And am driven to accomplish deeds without names.

Come away, come away, come away.
When labor is too great—
Then is when a birth occurs.
I, mother of maggots,
I lay the eggs of my brain in night visions;
There to incubate, molt and corrode,
There to pardon and poison all entrails.

And what of you?
It matters not that your neck is slender—
Or you, that your breasts are warm and supple.
You, with that raging void—
You too can be a midnight hag.
It occurs to us all, at one time or another,
When a broken heart is the gift and the wound,
Sin can be a soothing salve.

The charm is wound up.
Sisters, let us take leave.
Something wicked this way comes—
We go in search of newts and a messiah.

* * * * *

The Next Weird Sister Attempts Repentance

Thinking it had been a while
since she had felt god's grace
(one should feel sorry,
loving one's own end)—
she thought she felt sorry,
bowed her head, opened locks
for the air, made a hell-broth
(can done be undone?).
She thought she felt sorry,
for the seeds of all
things yet uncreated
(he knows thy thoughts),
for a child with a tree in his hands
(who can impress the forest?),
for where she had never been
about, about—wayward
(show the grief his heart).
Thinking heaven is murky—
she thought she felt god's grace:
give me . . . give me . . .
then thought of killing swine.

* * * * *

The Next Weird Sister Bathes in the River Jordan

You have seen her in the water, at dawn—
For the Jordan is not deep.
She moves, a thing amphibian,
As easy in water as in air.
She steps into the depth of water
With arms extended, arms empty,
Asking for all things,
Miscarried of Eve, insider to loneliness.
And if you have not seen her,
You have seen Miriam and all the women following
With timbrels and with dances,
Like circles on water, entering and reentering.

Water is a circle moving through circles:
The medium of memories.
In water there is no removal.
All which evaporates will condense.
(For who can say when the last tide will
Pull from the angle of the earth?)
You have seen her in the water,
Or if not her, your neighbor's daughter
Playing in the brackish street curbs,
With no certain dwelling place.

She steps from the water
As if she were conceived of chaos,
Thinking her arms still empty.
But you, who have been happy and good
(Have you not many mothers?),
You know all things were given her,
Even at her conception.
She proceeds, without knowing
The possibility of satisfaction,
But you have seen, and you know . . .
For her hands have touched the water.

* * * * *

L A N C E . L A R S E N

Light

A boy comes selling light,
no badges or letters of introduction,
just a paper sack of no-name bulbs
and a story about wanting to visit
his grandfather in Escondito. All this
on a morning so yellow that apricot buds,
tight as fists, threaten to unsmile.
But I believe him—for two dollars
I get variable wattage and a sweepstake
chance at a telescope. And safety.
I wrap my bulb in cashmere and lock it away.
For now I'll use G. E. bulbs.
But later, on a night when the moon
wears its blood in a smile
and the angels of light have been coffined
and the earth reels through the air
on the back of a drunken mule,
I'll replace the bulb on the porch.
Then from my front room, I'll watch,
like any patient child of the covenant,
for the destroying angel to pass me by.

* * * * *

Tadpoles

Asleep beside me, my wife dreams of babies,
three or four swimming slow circles like tadpoles.
She feels them inside her, slippery warm.
I watch the walls and think of a girl I hugged
at sock-hops, pigeon chested, safe as a brother.
Her name was Lori. We were twelve.

That fall the girls watched a film. We knew.
Amy Jarvis started first—bleeding like she'd
cut off a finger. Martha told us at recess.
"Amy,"—it was a conjured name, her eyes
strange as stars. Her body was the weather.
We were sailors, watchful and afraid.

Lori cried because she was slower. I held her hand.
In the band room. On the mats. She smelled
of rain. Hugging her was like hugging myself,
like touching a flower you hope will never open.
I touched older girls and felt myself dying,
felt the quiet annihilation of losing pieces.

With my wife it is the same. I wake her
with kisses, pin her against shadows.
She touches me. This is how she explains
her dreams, how she refuses to explain.
They hang like whispers in a foreign movie,
the same phrase over and over, pleasurable tiny stabs.