Book Review: James Goldberg’s A Book of Lamentations

September 28, 2021 by

James Goldberg, A Book of Lamentations (American Fork, UT: Beant Kaur Books, 2020).

Quite a few latter-day saints have drawn parallels between the events of 2020 and The Book of Mormon. James Goldberg, however, does it better than most. In A Book of Lamentations (2020), Goldberg and the other poets he features meditate on the parallels between The Book of Mormon and the divisions of our own time. “When Latter-day Saints say we know The Book of Mormon is true,” he writes, “we are saying something about human nature. We are affirming that we understand a civilization that chooses hatred and division is fully capable of destroying itself.”

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Three strange ways I’ve aquired LDS books

May 18, 2018 by

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Emily Debenham is a three-time Mormon Lit Blitz finalist. She loves ancient history, Mormon literature, and telling herself stories. 

There are two things you need to know about my younger self.  First, I was a voracious reader. Second, I was obsessed with LDS fiction.  The combination of being obsessed with a niche market of books and a voracious reader meant that I constantly ran out of books.  So, here are three tales of the strangest ways I acquired my next LDS literature hit.

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Mormonism in the American Mind (4): Those Funny, Funny Mormons

April 17, 2015 by

f070b614501f92c2ce93bbd33b5a5f52Judged by the standards of the rest of the world, Mormons are pretty funny. Trust me on this; we’re a freaking riot. Funny underwear, Jackson County, Kolob. None of the punch lines in the Book of Mormon musical had to be forced or wrenched from context. It was all there just waiting for a clever satirist to do some clever satire. That’s pretty much how clever satire works.

It turns out that Mormons have always been pretty funny. Gold plates and peep stones are funny. Polygamy, when situated in the proper narrative, can be hilarious. And those beards! This is why Mormons have been a fixture of American satire since they came of age together a hundred and fifty years ago. This means Mark Twain, of course, but that’s just for starters. Dozens of nineteenth century humorists spoke and wrote regularly about the Mormons. It was, like, a thing.
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A Religion of Peace?

January 15, 2015 by

This guest post is by long-time friend of the blog Michael Austin.

I read the Qur’an often because it speaks peace to my soul.

I know that sounds kooky, but I promise I’m not a hippie or anything. I don’t burn incense or wear sandals. I wouldn’t even call it a spiritual experience. It’s more like a calming effect. I love to read the text, and I love to listen to the recitations of a talented qāri’ (which I am doing even as I write). It’s not the meaning of the words that does the peace-speaking; it’s the words themselves. I have long been deeply affected by the way that the Qur’an represents the voice of God. [Read more…]

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A Poem for Today

April 9, 2013 by

Dietrich BonhoefferApril is National Poetry Month in the U.S., and I’d like to share a poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a Lutheran theologian of extraordinary courage and insight. Author of the classic The Cost of Discipleship, and a vocal anti-Nazi, he languished in a concentration camp for two years before being executed in the early morning on this date in 1945, just weeks prior to the collapse of the Third Reich. He wrote numerous letters and some poetry while in prison, of which the following is an example. It is not, perhaps, the most artful of his verse, but I have chosen it for its autobiographical—and yet universal—poignancy.

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