“Thank goodness I don’t have to live there! How do they stand it?” The revolting, depressing drabness and ugliness of the little Mormon towns we were driving through made my artist’s soul shiver. Never had I…
The year was 1856. Times were bad, economically, in Europe and particularly in England. In Utah, as in most developing economies, the need for human resources was high. Emigration committees were formed and funds collected…
Thus Clinton Larson in an interview published in Dialogue for Autumn 1969. Dr. Larson, whom Karl Keller has described as the first “Mormon poet,” also affirmed a hope that “If . . . literary artists . . . take their work as seriously as they should, and by ‘seriously’ I mean that they become professionally responsible, then a significant and coherent literary movement can begin.” Whether a “literary movement” in the church is possible, or even desirable, I wish to leave aside. Good poems, however, should be possible and certainly are desirable; they are, as Larson suggests, “part of the spiritual record” of this people. The recent books of three young writers, who might be thought of as second-generation L.D.S. poets, exhibit the grounds for both the hope and the negation in Larson’s remarks.
Dialogue 6.1 (Spring 1971): 31–36
Brian Walton, the BYU student body president in 1969-70 wrote this article to adress race issues head on. During BYU’s 1969-70 academic year, because of the church’s policy of denying blacks the priesthood and temple blessings, there were numerous protests at sporting events. In addition, several schools severed ties with BYU for a time.One of the ways that he was able to accomplish that was to bring in a fact finding mission from the Univeristy of Arizona to identify potential racism at BYU by interviewing students.
I grew up in Snowflake, which lies in desert country in Arizona, altitude 5600 feet. Alof Larson and May Hunt, my parents, were among the early arrivals to this pioneer settlement, named for Erastus Snow…
Brothers and sisters, I find this a bittersweet year for me to be participating in a Mother’s Day program, for my own mother passed away last November and my husband’s mother was buried just two…
Latter-day Saints have long had an interest in pre-Columbian ocean travel. Americanist scholars, with a few notable exceptions such as Gordon Ekholm, J. Charles Kelley and a few others, have in the past either rejected…
Joseph Fielding Smith is a name that has been known to the Latter-day Saints for well over sixty years. His leadership and counsel have been manifest in the leading councils of the Church since his…
So much of Utah’s early history has religious significance that the artist attempting to preserve its heritage has often found himself interpreting people and events of some concern to the Mormon Church. To the truly creative artist, dealing with a vested interest group such as a church in interpreting history and life through art can be frustrating. Mutual cooperation can lead to great artistic achievements which otherwise would go uncreated for lack of interest and funding.
The literature surveyed for this quarter’s bibliographical essay is from periodicals. Even the casual reader of this impressive list of recent works will notice that a high proportion of the reviewed literature concerns the “World Church.” From India to England, Tin Can Island to Finland, South Africa to Central America the Ensign and other journals report on the activities of the Church and present (albeit often superficially) introductions to the cultures of these lands.