From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #247 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Thursday, January 22 2004 Volume 02 : Number 247 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 03:18:19 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] SWENSON, _Iced at the Ward, Burned at the Stake_ (SL Tribune= review) Salt Lake Tribune SUNDAY January 18, 2004 The West Under Cover: Swenson shakes the beehive By Martin Naparsteck Special to The Tribune Iced at the Ward, Burned at the Stake and Other Poems By Paul Swenson; Signature; $14.95 Who has greater responsibility, the poet or the reader, to make certain the underpinnings of a poem are familiar to the reader? Most of the 42 poems in Paul Swenson's collection, Iced at the Ward, Burned at the Stake and Other Poems, invite that question. These poems require some knowledge of Mormon theology, of Utah's Mormon culture and of controversies within the church. William Mulder, a retired English professor at the University of Utah, recognizes the problem and provides some useful guidance in a short foreword. For example, he notes, "No churchgoers can miss the associations of 'forever families,' 'uncorrelated,' 'eternal digression,' 'in her cellar a two-year supply of love,' or '[wedding] dresses of disallowed desire.' " Without an understanding of such terms, many of these poems will fail to make sense to many, even careful, readers. But that's not new to intelligent poetry. Dante's "Divine Comedy" cannot be fully understood without some understanding of Roman Catholicism. Similarly in prose, many of the stories of Bernard Malamud fall flat without some knowledge of contemporary Judaism. Swenson's poetry does have some of the elements of universality that make Dante, Malamud and other religious writers appealing to readers of all religious backgrounds. The poems teem with a sense of rebelliousness, of scolding church leaders for what the poet sees as failures, and of the pain and anger felt by those the church does not treat kindly. In "White Gardenia," Swenson writes, "God will not be/mocked, her bishop says," and we are left with a feeling the poet is mocking the bishop for his attitude. In "Negative Space," the poet reports that "One guy at/ZCMI had the/job -- hard job/ -- of sanding off every nipple of all/the store's mannequins," leaving the feeling that the Mormon culture is capable of embarrassing silliness. More specifically, what approaches universality in Swenson's poems is a search for pan-religiosity, a sense of reaching for what is good in all religions and a rejection of what he finds silly or otherwise unacceptable= =20 in his own. He concludes "Strange Gods" with, "i lust for the veiled god/who will not go to war with her children,/will not author famine or floods, will not prune the buds of her most promising flowers/in some grand apocalypse - -- /will reveal her face at the wedding with the bridegroom;/i lust after strange gods." The result is a sense that these poems are most likely to be understood by those most likely to reject their premises. Many readers who are devout enough Mormons to catch the references will reject Swenson's point of view. How could such a reader, for example, not find offense in a passage that says, " . . . the titles of their leaders -- /Elder, Bishop, El Presidente,= =20 Mein Fuhrer . . . "? The passage is from "Nameless," which is about "a planet=20 where given names are verboten," where "Authority is paid esteem," and where "El Presidente looks naked in his uniform," which makes him like the emperor who doesn't realize his new clothes don't exist. It's not so much The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leaders as all leaders within Mormon culture who are targeted by Swenson's critique of what he sees as essential unkindness. In "Rrino Thach," he refers to=20 Utah's senior senator as a man who "Won't touch liquor/but his shotgun's set/at hair trigger." Earlier in the same poem, he says, the senator has a "Black heart . . . a black box/beating beneath/his white shirt/and his off-white,/ show-thru underwear." "Rrino Thach" is an unfortunate poem, too harsh for a collection that often chastises others for a shortage of kindness. It violates a standard Swenson sets for himself in another poem, "Redacted": "clever never lasts." The poem should have been left out of the collection. But that is a small sin in a collection that otherwise challenges the=20 reader to engage in an intelligent analysis, challenges the poems' subjects to=20 search for more kindness and less vindictiveness, and, mostly, challenges a culture to reach its potential. And that brings us to the answer to the question posed earlier. In those poems that urge kindness, Swenson's obligation is greater than that of his readers, and he satisfies that obligation. In the poems that are primarily complaints, and there are a half dozen or so of those, the obligation is the reader's, who largely must ignore the poet's slippages and continue on to what is good in this collection. Those poems are filled with understanding and kindness and courage, and that's what the careful reader of poetry should seek. ----- Martin Naparsteck reviews books from and about the West for The Salt=20 Lake Tribune. _________________________________________________________________ Scope out the new MSN Plus Internet Software =97 optimizes dial-up to the= max!=20 http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=3Den-us&page=3Dbyoa/plus&ST=3D1 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:20:22 -0500 From: "Hugh Stocks" Subject: Re: [AML] _The Best of Lowell Bennion_ I hadn't realized Lowell was writing in the 11th Century. The best source of historical information about him is Mary Bradford's biography. Mary has been known to lurk on this list, but I don't think she's doing so right now. I'll bet someone here can give you her email address privately, though. Hugh On 15 Jan 2004 at 14:13, Nan P. McCulloch stepped forward and proclaimed: > I just secured a copy of Lowell L. Bennion's selected writings = > 1028-1988--edited by Eugene England--from Amazon.com. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 21:33:42 -0800 From: "John Remy" Subject: Re: [AML] Who else has a webpage? I have a weblog to which I've been posting (albeit sporadically) for 2.5 years. I'm in the middle of transferring hosting services and redesigning it, but if y'all want to check it out, it's at: http://www.mindonfire.com It's the longest running journal I've kept (my mission one lasted for all of four or five months). It began as an experiment in honesty (a sort of spiritual coming out) and continues to be useful for religious/emotional/social bloodletting and occasional creative outbursts. John Remy UC Irvine - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #247 ******************************