The Mormon Lit Blitz presses on, though with somewhat more trepidation than yesterday...
Today's Piece: "Slippery" by Stephen Carter
What did you think of this piece?
On one level, I'm interested in the warning it seems to contain for us. On another, I'm just haunted by the closing images and the overall feeling of a weirdness that seems just barely beyond the realm of everyday experience.
I'm also fascinated by the use of Helaman 13: 30-31 in this piece. The passage is never directly mentioned, but it shapes the plot and explains the main character's pivotal realization and decision. Is the not-telling part of what gives the piece its eerie, haunting feeling? Or does it work just as well for readers who don't know that scripture, making the allusion more of a wink at those in the audience who know it?
What were your reactions?
Friday, June 20, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
"Curelom Riders" Discussion
On Day Four, the Lit Blitz takes a majestic dive into the unknown...
Today's piece: "Curelom Riders" by Annaliese Lemmon
No piece of writing starts from scratch: writing necessarily builds off things readers already know. One advantage writers of Mormon Lit have is that their audience has a lot of specialized pre-existing knowledge that can be drawn on.
In her short piece, Annaliese Lemmon draws not only on this specialized Mormon knowledge in her use of the book of Ether, but also on a broad cultural awareness of the tropes of epic fantasy. The success of the alternative history/ epic fantasy Temeraire books, which Lemmon has cited as an inspiration for this piece, shows that many readers today are happy to let writers draw on traditionally distinct genres simultaneously. Does anything change, though, when one of those genres is scripture?
What do you think of the cross-genre work this piece does with the Book of Mormon?
What other interesting experiments with cross-genre work involving scripture have you seen? What might be the next cool experiment for a Mormon writer?
Today's piece: "Curelom Riders" by Annaliese Lemmon
No piece of writing starts from scratch: writing necessarily builds off things readers already know. One advantage writers of Mormon Lit have is that their audience has a lot of specialized pre-existing knowledge that can be drawn on.
In her short piece, Annaliese Lemmon draws not only on this specialized Mormon knowledge in her use of the book of Ether, but also on a broad cultural awareness of the tropes of epic fantasy. The success of the alternative history/ epic fantasy Temeraire books, which Lemmon has cited as an inspiration for this piece, shows that many readers today are happy to let writers draw on traditionally distinct genres simultaneously. Does anything change, though, when one of those genres is scripture?
What do you think of the cross-genre work this piece does with the Book of Mormon?
What other interesting experiments with cross-genre work involving scripture have you seen? What might be the next cool experiment for a Mormon writer?
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
"In Remembrance" Discussion
Day Three of discussion about the 2014 Mormon Lit Blitz
Today's Piece: "In Remembrance" by Merrijane Rice
Intellectually, it seems reasonable to me to suppose that most people feel their failures like a bayonet wound at times. And yet there are moments when that stab of regret is so overpowering that I'm pretty sure it must be abnormal, that I must have some undiagnosed ailment to be feeling such pain.
Our religion, like most, acknowledges the diverse presence of pain in the world and invites us to move toward healing and meaning. And we often do--though our memories do typically remain, sometimes accompanied by startling flare-ups of old wounds.
Why does God allow that?
Is it somehow good for us, or is it something we'd be better off finding a way around?
What did you think of the poem as a way of speaking to your experience?
Today's Piece: "In Remembrance" by Merrijane Rice
Intellectually, it seems reasonable to me to suppose that most people feel their failures like a bayonet wound at times. And yet there are moments when that stab of regret is so overpowering that I'm pretty sure it must be abnormal, that I must have some undiagnosed ailment to be feeling such pain.
Our religion, like most, acknowledges the diverse presence of pain in the world and invites us to move toward healing and meaning. And we often do--though our memories do typically remain, sometimes accompanied by startling flare-ups of old wounds.
Why does God allow that?
Is it somehow good for us, or is it something we'd be better off finding a way around?
What did you think of the poem as a way of speaking to your experience?
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
"The Primary Temple Trip" Discussion
Day two of discussion from the 2014 Mormon Lit Blitz.
Today's Piece: "The Primary Temple Trip" by Laura Hilton Craner
Service is a central part of Mormon culture. In order to highlight the value of service, the stories we tell often tend to emphasize how good service feels.
In many cases, though, important service does not neatly fit into our standard narrative models for how service ought to go.
What do you think about the depiction of service in this piece?
Have you had any experiences with service this piece reminds you of?
What words does your mother say all the time?
What other reactions did you have to this piece?
Today's Piece: "The Primary Temple Trip" by Laura Hilton Craner
Service is a central part of Mormon culture. In order to highlight the value of service, the stories we tell often tend to emphasize how good service feels.
In many cases, though, important service does not neatly fit into our standard narrative models for how service ought to go.
What do you think about the depiction of service in this piece?
Have you had any experiences with service this piece reminds you of?
What words does your mother say all the time?
What other reactions did you have to this piece?
Monday, June 16, 2014
20/20 Discussion
We just kicked off the third annual Mormon Lit Blitz and hope you'll hop aboard your curelom and join us for the journey through twelve short pieces of Mormon Lit ("short" meaning less than 1000 words, which is about three minutes of reading time). From June 30th - July 5th, you, dear readers, will have the chance to vote for your favorite pieces and choose a winner for the $100 Lit Blitz prize. In the meantime, we hope you'll join us for daily discussions of the finalists on this blog.
Today's Piece: Lindsay Denton's "20/20"
On a literal level, this is a piece about a girl who gets glasses, grows up, and then occasionally takes those glasses off.
But literature does not tend to be purely literal. Much of the power of literature, in fact, is in its ability to serve as open metaphor: to provide images that don't mean any one exact thing, but that we can apply to a wide range of different concerns or experiences.
It's sort of amazing, actually, that a story about the biological problem with one girl's eyesight and the technological solution our society offers her can be turned so easily into a spiritual question for its readers.
How often do you distinguish between the way the world is and the way you see it?
What does it mean to become as little children?
Is the very real, objectively extant God partly to be found in the blurred edges of our perceptions?
What other sorts of things did this piece get you thinking about?
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Church History poem, attempt #2
Joseph Sr., ca. 1812
In the spring he sows hope,
but come fall he reaps only the empty wind—
so all through the long Vermont winter,
there’s a bottle in his hand.
He drinks like Noah—to drown
a flood’s worth of sorrows,
drinks until he staggers to and fro
as earth itself will in the end.
This is how I understand that story where his son,
infection arching through the bone,
turns down the surgeon’s offer of anesthetizing liquor.
“I don’t need that,” the boy says to his father,
“I just need you.”
In the spring he sows hope,
but come fall he reaps only the empty wind—
so all through the long Vermont winter,
there’s a bottle in his hand.
He drinks like Noah—to drown
a flood’s worth of sorrows,
drinks until he staggers to and fro
as earth itself will in the end.
This is how I understand that story where his son,
infection arching through the bone,
turns down the surgeon’s offer of anesthetizing liquor.
“I don’t need that,” the boy says to his father,
“I just need you.”
Monday, March 10, 2014
I wanted to write a poem about Mormon history, and this is what I got...
Baptism by Fire
The temple is burning to ash
Because a boy saw a pillar of fire
So let the worshipers wander in the desert
Casting shadows in the light of a bush God burns
Someday we’ll make a bushel of this city
Will you still see, beneath it, a glimmer of candlelight?
One moment I’m a zealot on the roadside
The next, I’m speaking with a tongue of flame
Was there ever a beginning? I’ll ask you
Or a time without your spark?
Open your books in the darkest night
And read God’s word by lightning!
The temple is burning to ash
Because a boy saw a pillar of fire
So let the worshipers wander in the desert
Casting shadows in the light of a bush God burns
Someday we’ll make a bushel of this city
Will you still see, beneath it, a glimmer of candlelight?
One moment I’m a zealot on the roadside
The next, I’m speaking with a tongue of flame
Was there ever a beginning? I’ll ask you
Or a time without your spark?
Open your books in the darkest night
And read God’s word by lightning!
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