Let's begin with this: Poetry anthologies, by nature, never satisfy. Usually several poets admired by an individual reader are left out while lesser lights are included. Even when a reader feels poets have been rightly selected, they're often represented by too many examples, or too few, or all the wrong poems for one's personal taste.
That said, let me say editors Eugene England and Dennis Clark were well aware of the pitfalls of compiling a collection such as this when they began and have shown dedication, literary expertise and high-minded standards in putting together a "worthy" anthology of LDS verse.For the book to have credibility, of course, certain poets must be present. And they're here: Clinton Larson, seen as the father of modern Mormon verse; Edward L. Hart with his hymns of praise; Arthur Henry King's lofty lyrics; populist Carol Lynn Pearson; Marden J. Clark; Veneta Nielsen; Emma Lou Thayne.
And as hoped, there are many, many surprises. Readers who haven't plumbed LDS poetry will be struck, for instance, by the strong poems of Randall L. Hall - poems more forged than written. The feisty side of Robert Christmas puts in an appearance. Personally, I was pleased to discover the straight-talking meditations of Colin B. Douglas, poems that choose honesty over cleverness.
What's more, England and Clark wisely included the poems of a dozen or so lesser-known LDS women. In fact, those poems form the backbone of the entire anthology.
An old sacrament meeting quip claims men are theologians and the women are Christians in the Mormon Church. The thought is borne out here. Perhaps the evangelical nature of the church prompts many male poets to exhort, to expound, to "proclaim" their poetry. Poem after poem here trades on elevated rhetoric. And the fervor of such poetry tends to produce more heat and light than warmth. So - apart from poems by Douglas and a few others - it falls to several women to offer the precise, "Christian plain style" poetry that's been the heart and soul of religious verse since the Psalms.
It's Penny Allen's "The Word Was Unperfected Till Made Flesh," Laura Hamblin's "Divorce," and "In Celebration of a Daughter" and the simple, conversational voice of truth found in various efforts by Emma Lou Thayne, Carol Lynn Pearson, Dixie Lee Patridge and Mary Lythgoe Bradford that temper the anthology and, in the end, make it a book to be loved as well as respected.
The editors have included the words to several hymns, though not nearly enough, I feel.
And more humor could have been showcased without sabotaging the seriousness of the project.
But the weakness of the book really lies in the final section. It is an odd addition called "Friends and Relations," featuring the work of famous poets who are either lapsed Mormons and/or "friends of the church." The poems are wonderful, make no mistake. But the only purpose I can see in including the work of William Stafford, May Swenson, Brewster Ghiselin and Leslie Norris is to give the buyer some "name brand" bards - more bang for his buck.
However pure the impulse, the message that England and Clark inadvertently send is this: Our poets are good, but we still need to rub shoulders with high-profile writers to establish credibility.
It isn't so much "guilt by association" as "grace by association." And - ironically - it plays right into the very provincial stereotype that Mormon poets and anthologists such as these are trying to undermine.