Mormon literaturstreit opening salvos and more
Hello. May was my busiest month at work. Part of that is preparations for Commencement (I work in the marketing and communications department at a college) and all sorts of other year-end events. Part of that is we launched a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system at the end of April and, while things went well as far as such launches go, there was a lot to fix, add, adjust, etc.
So this comes a few days late.
In this issue, I bring you overviews and some reflection on the next two posts of the AMV Dive, a bit of follow up on the Mormon Lit Blitz, and a brief update on my Mormon-focused fiction writing.
Oh, also: if you haven’t had occasion to pick up a copy of my novella The Unseating of Dr. Smoot, a) it’s a quick read, perfect for summer travel and vacation and b) there may be more of an occasion to announced soon-ish so maybe get a head start?
Mormon Literaturestreit—Cracroft and Jorgensen
Here’s what I covered on A Motley Vision since I last emailed you:
POST 1: Mormon Literaturstreit: Richard Cracroft’s review of Harvest
Brief Summary
In his BYU Studies review of Signature Books’ Harvest: Contemporary Mormon Poems, BYU English Professor Richard Cracroft claims that the anthology is “bifurcated” between poems by the older poets (which were selected by Eugene England) and those by most of the younger poets (which were selected by Dennis Clark). Overall, he judges the anthology to be a fine one that proves Mormon poets can combine true artistry, faith, and spirituality, but, for him, the poems by the younger poets lack a Mormon ethos and “could have been written anywhere in Western culture”.
Key Quote
“Indeed, we find only occasionally among the poets born after 1939 that distinctively Latter-day Saint voice, the sensibility of the believing poet. Whether it is because Clark has ‘privileged’ the poems because of their sound or because they reflect a faltering spiritual vision among younger Mormon poets, these poems are testimonials to how the educated modem Mormon poet has assimilated the secular culture and modes of poetry, repressing and replacing soaring spirituality with earth-bound humanism.”
Why It’s Important
Because it’s Cracroft saying that some of the poems aren’t “Mormon enough” that leads to the response from Bruce Jorgensen and kicks off the whole Mormon Literaturstreit. And also because here Cracroft creates a narrow definition of what counts as writing with a “Mormon ethos”—as Mormon literature—and more boldly than we often see creates a division and definition. And creating divisions and hard definitions in a field are what cause debates to break out.
POST 2: Mormon Literaturstreit: Bruce Jorgensen responds to Richard Cracroft
Brief Summary
Bruce Jorgensen (also a BYU English Professor) responds to Richard Cracroft’s review of Harvest in his presidential addressed for an Association for Mormon Letters conference by marshaling scripture, ancient philosophers, modern writers, and more to call for a Mormon literature that is open to the stranger/other, invoking the idea of hospitality as something the field should embrace. He also provides readings of a couple of the poems Cracroft claimed as lacking a Mormon ethos that attempts to reclaim them for the field.
Key Quote
“Mormon reading would be patient, longsuffering, kind; its truest guides might be 1 Corinthians 13 and the 13th Article of Faith. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Cot. 13:1).”
Why It’s Important
Although Jorgensen states how he thinks Mormon criticism or reading or definition of the field should proceed in several different ways, this one gives us the most concrete attributes and approaches (and citations) with which to define the field (and Jorgensen’s big tent approach to it) and approach the texts.
In June, we’ll cover Cracroft’s response to Jorgensen’s address and maybe one other entry in the Literaturstreit.
Mormon Lit Blitz: my finalist votes + feedback on my submissions
I managed to get my act together and read all of the finalists for this year’s Mormon Lit Blitz. Overall, I was missing some of the experimentation and genre-ness of prior editions, but also really enjoyed the over literary quality and attention to lived experience of faith.
Here are the pieces I voted for in alphabetical order (I don’t remember how I ranked them):
“The Gift” by R. de la Lanza
“Parable of the 10 Virgins” by Michelle Graabek
“Marriage” by Michael Hicks
“Bundling Up” by Lara Niedermeyer
Also: a few of you were kind enough to provide feedback on my failed submission (see last month’s issue for details), which I enjoyed because I think writers often learn more from their failures. Here’s what you helped me learn:
I just don’t think the 1,000 word limit works for me anymore—or at least not for a short story-style format.
The feedback that the tone/style was off was right. I mean, it’s something I and some of the EQ presidents I had when I lived in Berkeley and Oakland might write in my head in the shower, but actually sending it is a different matter. Perhaps I should have titled it “The email I didn’t send to the ward council when they asked what we should do about Brother Harris”.
I remain interested in expressions and explorations of Mormon masculinity beyond what we tend to get in the canon Mormon literature, but I’m not entirely sure where to go with that next.
As one of you pointed out, I wonder if the real story here is this bit: Brother Harris is someone who was able to extricate the narrator’s daughter “when she found herself at a party turning into the kind of party she didn’t want to be at without ruining her social standing at all”
On What I’m Writing And Not Writing
I have a short story coming out in Dialogue this fall that hits a lot of notes that will be familiar if you’ve been reading my more recent fiction while also doing some things I haven’t done before. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to be able to finally publish The Courtship of Elder Cannon in the first half of next year.
But over the past six months, I’ve started three projects: my next Mormon-focused novel (which I was supposed to start last summer), a short story features a Bishop and one of his members who is a conservative talk radio host, and a novella that is science fiction (including aliens [of sorts]) but is also a Künstlerroman (of sorts) and a temple story [of sorts].
They’re all good starts, and I don’t think any of the ideas are misfires. But I’ve struggled to gain enough momentum on any of them to get a first draft completed.
And I think I know why: I’ve said a lot about Mormonism and the Mormon experience in my fiction so far.
I still have plenty to say.
But I think I’m entering an era where I’m past the easier ways to say it.
By easier, I don’t mean less complex or difficult, I mean easier because the forms it took played into my strengths as a writer.
All of which is to say: the need to grow comes for us all. And growth is often slow and takes more work than normal.
Alas.
(But I’m going to try).
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