Spring 1974
The Spring 1974 Issue opens with a conversation between Juanita Brooks and Davis Bitton, where Brooks shares insights into her life and work. Robert Flanders reflects on the evolving field of Mormon history, while Davis Bitton and Gary L. Bunker examine the presence of phrenology within the Mormon community. Lowell L. Bennion, in the "From the Pulpit" section, discusses the concept of balancing three key loyalties in religion. Randy Gibbs is featured as the guest artist, adding a visual dimension to the collection. The poetry section includes works by Steven Goldsberry, Clifton Holt Jolley, Stephen Gould, Mary L. Bradford, and Arthur Henry King. Their poems explore themes ranging from work, memory, and nature to spirituality, as seen in pieces like Workings, Colors in Idaho, Holy Thursday, and September the First, 1969. And more!
Elsewhere in this issue Robert Flanders speaks of the New Mormon History as having begun in 1945 with the publication of Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History. While Brodie’s book is certainly pivotal, an…
In the last quarter-century a significantly different understanding of the Latter day Saint past has begun to emerge in a series of books, journal articles, oral ad dresses at various conferences, and more informally, in…
On 2 July 1842 the Nauvoo Wasp contained a letter from A. Crane, M.S., professor of phrenology, alluding to the “large number of persons in different places” who wished to know “the phrenological development of…
Utah has achieved the dubious distinction of making the pages of the prestigious organ of America’s publication industry, Publishers’ Weekly. To some the publicity achieved in the article “Bookstore Perishes in Wake of Utah Obscenity Legislation” represents a disheartening step into further denial of free agency. To others it represents a heartening step in the direction of rooting out the devil all around us.
Bojangles so much burdens me
With his memory
That I am often caught, mid syllable,
As he stitches back the grey fields of my brain—
An old Indian lives in the lemon orchard.
His age bewilders the thorns,
his body is rich as brasswork.
He will kill you many times before
In October old Michael died,
out of grace and three weeks gone before
we found him, stark white
in that black oak bed of his.
Man grows old at any time, not simply in the Autumn.
In the tropics, we do not recognize seasons:
death is hardly a growth, but accident, catastrophe,
sudden disease, or mere insufficiency;
All three of these poets claim, explicitly or implicitly, to be “western,” and it is unlikely that anyone will challenge the claim. Their poems reflect the western landscape, or, more specifically, the Great Basin landscape…
This might well be the most difficult book Juanita Brooks ever undertook. Consider the formidable problems: Though Mrs. Brooks is the scholar’s scholar of Mormonism, what can she do about the fact that the Jews…
Being religious can mean many different things—like going to church, reading scripture, believing in God, keeping the commandments. In fact religion embraces so much that one needs to cast his own religious beliefs and feelings…
