Tag: Plates of Brass

On the Mormon Vision of Language: Remembering the Word of God through the Words of God

In this week,s installment of my series ‘On the Mormon Vision of Language,’ I ruminate over how vital words are to our relationship with the Word (i.e., Christ). I frame my thoughts, on one hand, in terms of the value the Lehites placed on the plates of brass—enough to halt their exodus and risk their sons lives to collect the records (see 1 Nephi 3:4, especially)—and, on the other, in terms of the people of Zarahemla, who Amaleki tells us left Jerusalem without any records.

As always, your thoughts are welcome in the comments.


(The audio only version. A direct link to the audio file.)

(All posts in this series. // All audio files from this series.)

There is Mormon Epic Poetry?

If poetry is out of fashion to a great degree, then epic poetry is almost prehistoric. Most people, if they have any idea of what epic poetry is, think of the Homerian and Vergilian ouverve — The Odyssey, the Iliad and the Aneid. With a little thought, they might also come up with some of the midieval and early modern epics like the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and, my favorite, The Lusiad. Of Wikipedia’s list of poetic epics, the only post 1700 work in English I recognized was Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha.

Given the perception of epic poetry as works written many hundreds or  even thousands of years ago, I’m sure most Mormons are ignorant of Mormon epic poetry.

So for National Poetry Month, I looked at what has been written, and found 7 works of Mormon epic poetry.

Continue reading “There is Mormon Epic Poetry?”