Buckets's Final Essay Response

Which genre of LDS literature is most important? Use this question as a way of demonstrating your exposure to and understanding of many different genres for LDS literature. Be sure that you refer to specific genres, texts, and authors in doing so.

Considering everything we've read, I believe the personal essay, something more along the lines of Hoiland's One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly, is the most important LDS literature genre. The autobiographical nature helps realize the LDS environment without losing the soul of the questions being asked. Personal Essays stretch what the Church community could see as aesthetic while sincerely expanding the LDS communal sphere. Without the personal essay, we couldn't have Terry Tempest William's Refuge, or Eugene England's remarks in "Why the Church is as True as the Gospel."

I'd say the second most important genre would be fictional writing, along the lines of Martine Leavitt's My Book of Life by Angel. Leavitt weaves in some LDS concepts in the lives of other people, it creates a stronger doctrinal sympathy. LDS and non-LDS readers alike can discover their ideas bumping against each other in a more honest way, but fiction still displaces the reader. Science Fiction, like Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son, greatly explore LDS beliefs and culture, but it also feels like the only place the plot allows the LDS conversation to go is a string of hypothetical question, rather than the concrete nature of the conflicts and dialogue in personal essays. Kenny Kemp's The Welcoming Door is a similar fictional piece which is meant for Christians in general, but doesn't tease at the issues that lie in between the LDS community and general Christianity. Definitely important, but perhaps not pressing enough.

Another important genre to LDS literature is poetry, but I think that poetry has faded in its ability to enter into a widespread conversation. This doesn't detract from Darlene Young's beautiful, simple Homespun and Angel Feathers, which raises a lot of questions, oftentimes from within conservative Mormonism. But the aesthetic nature of poetic device detracts from the realities that the LDS community can cope with through literature. I think Eugene England ability to connect with the reader while connecting a web of non-traditional events, as he does in "Healing and Making Peace, in the Church and in the World" have a stronger effect. It will last longer for the reader.

Personal Essays also draw in the storytelling nature of Spencer W. Kimball's and Neal L. Maxwell's sermons, without the didactic touch. Sermons have their own literary style, but tend to be confined by common beliefs, stretching what we already have faith in, or clarifying those points. For instance, Joseph Smith needs to use logos to build upon the saints' common belief in the King Follett sermon. It cannot be given the immediate validation life experiences offer, where the reader is forced to approach from the author's perspective.

LDS Literature in visual media, such as the set of plays in Out of the Mount and the personal favorite Jer3miah mini-series, definitely has its place. Granted, more people will watch a short video than read a book or watch a play. As good and riveting as "Happy Little Secrets" and Homespun are, they don't as easily appeal to modern day reception. I know different Christian sects use the Church's Life of Christ bible videos, and the Book of Momon video production level is large enough to receive notoriety from the New York Times. The platform for LDS visual media is expanding, but I don't think it has cracked through the same intimacy that personal essays do. There also isn't a whole lot of "important" LDS films out there. I think that this genre will eventually become the most important aspect of LDS literature, but needs more time to develop.

When I think about Added Upon and the 19th century poetry (such as Snow's "A Morning View of the Prairie, Coolbrith's "Millenium), I see just how much LDS culture has expanded globally. Nephi Anderson's Added Upon stretched Orson F. Whitney's call for the Church's own "Miltons and Shakespeares," which I think we are still looking for. But the personal essay approaches literary discussion from a level which allows the writer to grow just as much as the reader. This growing experience which usually fortifies the faith without testifying, and humanizes the religion just enough to preserve its sacredness.

Buckets's Revision Plan

Content:
I plan on getting rid of the some of the "LDS-only" references, but keep two and add stronger, more general introductions to the references. I'm kicking around the title of Friends at First, Are Friends Again? This is a Joseph Smith quote (question mark added), but sets a good tone for the essay. I also want to make the essays idea better outlined but still not didactic.

Form:
I like the brief vignettes of my old friends matched with brief sentences, but some sentences need to be broadened. Additionally, I'll try to make my signposts clearer--implicit instead of explicit--so the text doesn't get lost and seem to amble about. For the diction, I want to do a better job showing the chasm better ideal relationships and awkward connections.

Visual Design:
The part that I am struggling with most. Dr. Burton and I constructed the idea that I could take a picture of me and my mission trainer and show it again, but blurred and ambiguous. I like this idea, but will keep playing with other photos of friends. I also am going to work with my subheadings, to make them more attractive, and perhaps add one more so that I can avoid a wall of text in the middle of my paper.

Bucket's Essay Draft: Holy Ghosts

PEOPLE I SAW AND TALKED WITH THE FIRST WEEK OF THE SEMESTER
January 5-9, 2018
-Maya. A Laurel from one of my mission areas.
-Anastasia. Childhood friend. A Giants fan. Last time I saw her was at a sleepover 15 years ago.
-Alex. Ate at his apartment almost daily my freshman year.
-Garrett. Went to a scout camp together when we were 12. Still looks 12.
-Hayden. My mission trainer.

Actually, Hayden was the first person I saw on campus. Messy hair jostled by bitter wind. wrinkled pants clutched his slim thighs. A massive grin spilled over flushed cheeks.

It had only been three weeks since I last saw him, but the reunion retained lush sweetness. Just before Christmas, I planted myself on packed snow and cheered as massive oak doors revealed him and his radiant bride. No holiday jingle offered the same savor as watching their first dance. I gazed at others to see more familiar faces, whose tears also flicked to the ground to freeze.

This was Alma's joy. The moment where he sees his old friends, the Sons of Mosiah, return to Zarahemla after a tumultuous, 14-year absence. I was experience the same pure reunion. Alma and I shared a glance that Emmanuel Levinas describes eloquently. 

"To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity."

I was surrounded by heavenly Others. Infinite apparitions swarmed me. Each being awoke a separate, pungent sentience. These encounters became like concrete statues. Inexplicable. Overwhelming. Permanent.

PEOPLE I SAW AND AVOIDED THIS LAST WEEK
October 28 - November 1, 2019
-Sarah. Went on some dates with her. Painful conversations.
-Professor Scott. Had him a year ago. Had a question. Forgot it.
-This guy I can't stop seeing. From World Religions, long ago. Always wears business casual.
-Athena. Current classmate. Walk past each other in the same corridor twice a week at 2:55.
-Hayden. My mission trainer.

10 feet away. Same hair. pants. No smile. Head down. rushed steps. My mind alters between saying hello and checking my phone. Contorted, panicked thoughts. My jaw sags ajar, waiting for a command. A ramshackle "hey..." ejects itself into the stony air. 

He walks away, unfazed. Relief and regret, two unlikely friends, begin homemaking in the pit of my stomach.

They are everywhere. ghostly specters. I want to drop my backpack and say "CAN'T YOU SEE YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE?" As they impassively float by. My connections to them resembles bondage more than bond. Time, still undefeated, has spewed rust and heaved weight to my memories like never before. Now these cretins silently wail their siren songs as I reel through campus, haunting me with jilted taunts. "Remember me? Do you care? Do I care?" I wonder why it was so difficult for Nephi and his brothers to get the brass plates from Laban. Couldn't they have pretended to not see each other? They could have nabbed those suckers on the first try. Works great.

But guilt, constantly present, bruises my circumventing heels. I have immense difficulty feeling the joy Alma the Younger had, and Levinas embraced. I don't discover infinity the Other's eyes now; I confront an awkward conversation. Unneeded minutes spent on conjuring emotions. I spent two years talking to strangers, I am worried I'll spend as much time avoiding memories.

When did I learn about awkwardness? Could it be too many experiences when a familiar face brightens at something in my direction, and me return the warmth, only to discover the real cause, a closer friend, right behind me? Perhaps seeing old friends has become a glorified name game, scraping a barrel of discarded knowledge solely to reinforce how small the world is. Sometimes I wonder if I bought too many relationships, and now I have to dispose of expired ones from the fridge. Or maybe too many of these reunions have been met by unimpressed countenances, extinguishing the light in their eyes so I could leave sooner.

For some time I have seen my old friends disintegrate to stoic ghosts. I have grappled with the distance between I and the Other. 10 feet becomes light-years when the timing fails me. "Sorry, can't talk. I'm supposed to see you in class, not the library." "Excuse me, I'm buying cookies from the vending machine. You aren't supposed to glance over here." My life appears too burdensome for memories. My journals have become a filing cabinet, and putting all that on a flash drive? Too difficult. Negligence appears more comfortable.

But one moment keeps future joyous reunions on life support. Five minutes which altered everything.

I was horribly late for class. The somber March sun casts flecks of light through the cloud cover. Spindly legs launch me through the courtyard.
"Richard!" 
From nowhere, a small, bundled woman blocks my path. Caked in bronze, I can hardly recognize her. 
-Ashley. Sang in a choir together. Great friend. She dances competitively now. 
We strike a conversation. I walk with her. She smiles. I do too. We meet up weeks later. Date. Marry. We smile some more.

I cannot avoid these apparitions forever. They look too much like angels.

PEOPLE I SAW AND MADE MYSELF TALK WITH THIS LAST WEEK
-Kami. Served in Texas with me. Not Facebook friends.
-Devon. Worked with him as an intramural referee. Future car salesman.  
-Jessica. In a current class. Spent most of the talk figuring out who I was. Smiled in the end.
-Professor Boston. Refused to call me Buckets. Knows me as "The student not named Buckets."
-Hayden. My mission trainer.

Buckets's Belief Sketch

They are everywhere. Apparitions from the past. I can't go a day without seeing them. But they are worse than ghosts, they are old acquaintances.

The first one today. His square shoulders and towering body hunch over his phone. We were in the same ward two years ago. He lived three doors down. I sat next to him in Elders Quorum once. He made a bland comment about scripture study during a "breakout session." His suit was sharkskin but he didn't shower. That was the sole moment between us.
But what was his name? Was it worth beginning the obscure recollection process? Our eyes haven't met, so we are safe. I can keep walking. I am running late anyway.

In less than ten minutes the next one appears. Bright blue eyes, rushed gait. A nasally inflection confirmed my fear. Even worse, I remembered her name. Rachael. We had English 251 together. She announced she was going to the Farmington New Mexico mission. We were in the MTC together, but she never recognized me. That was five years ago.
She materializes right in front of me. Eye contact. Mild panic. My mind's recesses rattle off faint mantras. "Fellowship!" "Love!" "Reach Out!" "Minister!"
But before I can stammer a word she disappears into the crowd. Relief and pain simultaneously shoot through me.

Already two ghosts appeared and I've been on campus for ten minutes? This will be a spooky day.

Buckets's Three Character Sketches

1.
He wears two shirts two work: neon green and neon orange. His mustache matches the concrete he pushed. Grey flecks shower his boots, pants, arms. His jokes are sharper than his trowel, honed from years of hard work and boredom. In his work truck lay a bed of Mountain Dew; in the truck bed lay a mountain of work supplies. He is the king of this unfinished house, his crown an indestructible hat.

2.
A nervous twitch jilts his glasses. His wide smile splits the stubble. He likes connections. His shirt matches my companion's name and he steadily slides Hall and Oates lyrics in his comments to recognize mine. Younger than his age, stronger than his looks, he patiently awaits for his own recognition--that we are more than missionaries, and he is more than an investigator.

3.
She walks in spray-tan, like the others. Her fair holds extravagant curves and whirls. Though her black dress sparkles with jewels, she can easily disappear into the mob of competitors. Bolder than her clothes is the wedding band. What is a source of pride in others is her stumbling block to finding a dance partner. But when she adorns it during her routine, her smile beams brighter than skin and garb, and I cheer her on even louder.

Three Scenes from Buckets's Life

1.

Dirt. musty granules infiltrate my nostrils. It's everywhere. Hugging the Chassis. Glazing the hood. One foot plunges into the arid soil, the other resides in the filthy truck. To my left a coyote chases an antelope. On my immediate right, starched bones adorn the ground. The GPS thinks we're in Washington. Wrong. I shake the dirt out of it. Now we're in Washington D.C. Also wrong. The fuel gauge is thirsty. I shrug and pop some more seeds in between my gums and cheeks. Shells cascade onto weeds. Noxious weeds.

2.

He sprints for the trolley. She sits unaware. I sob uncontrollably, the tissue box now hollow. He clutches his chest and folds. Stoic passersby amplify the tragedy. I scream as the orchestra refrain begins. Like candlelight, "The End" boldly appears, then fades out the TV screen. 

Darkness surrounds me. a digitalized 1:00 AM floats in the air. I am alone. Unsatisfied. Quivering lips utter vain words. "Yuri... you idiot."

3.

In an alien room and scratchy gown, a clock ticks religiously. My eyes gyrate, absorbing the surroundings. I am a floating head in a sea of sheets. The adjacent world still resides on a separate plane. Curiosity grips me. "Where is my body?" I throw the covers and gown and identify a fluffy lump of gauze resting on my abdomen. My memory returns. I glance at the embarrassed nurse. I weigh one appendix less today.

Buckets's Literary Journal Experience

An abbreviated passage from a my Freshman year journal.
April 11, 2015
I participated in the 24 hour theatre project which was immensely fun and incredibly long--24 hours, to be exact. The writers took had from 7pm to 7am to write the script and we had from 7am to 7pm to practice then perform. Then you sleep forever. I was with Margaret. Margaret was with Eurydice with me and in my TMA 150 class.

1. I woke up early to get to my play practice, then did that non-stop for 12 hours. There was only a one hour break before we performed and we used it to practice. Woof. Lots of my friends and Michelle came and afterwards I bought a liter of Dr. Pepper and hung out with more friends. (basic summary)

2. "Your play was great. I promise." I probably should have told Michelle there was a kissing scene in the play. Guess when you have 12 hours to perfect a 20-minute play, things slip you mind. So freaking tired. My throat was wasted when I showed up at Spencer's apartment, but the crew was there, so I hammed it up all over again.  (casual yet theatrical, made to build personal character)

3. -Jared, my director that made me kiss Margaret even though it wasn't in the script.
    -Michelle, coming to my play even after we broke up.
    -Spencer, who showed me his new fish named Lyndon B. Johnson.
    -Margaret, who went 19 years before kissing a boy. (bullet list and focused on others' narratives)

4. I'm so grateful for all the opportunities BYU gives me to make memories and be with other people (moralized, generic)

5. Margaret is tremendous. She has such a commitment to her character, and has really good chemistry with me on stage. During Eurydice she did a great job creating connections with every character; even though she had a minor role. She got into the acting program, and is so close to convincing me to audition. Her dark curly hair and occasionally funky syllables give away her Jewish heritage, but you could never tell when she acts. You could also never tell that she never kissed a boy before tonight, but that's just the power of acting, right? (Long, descriptive explication of a single subject)

Definitely a stretch to rewrite a journal, but doing so allowed me to get into literary thinking, not regurgitation. The samples were also much, much more condensed than my typical journal entries, which made it all the more challenging. Out of the styles I imitated, I liked style 3 the most. This one mixed this sort of absent-present with a grocery list. It proved to make me think about my interactions with other people and condensing them into simple, memorable bytes.

Whitney's Warrior: Added Upon in Early Home Literature

For over fifty years the gospel has been preached to the poor and lowly. It will yet go to the high and mighty, even to kings and nobles, and penetrate and climb to places hitherto deemed inaccessible. Our literature will help to take it there; for this, like all else with which we have to do, must be made subservient to the building up of Zion. 

-Orson F. Whitney.

Whitney makes no mistake. The "Home Literature" he requests the saints to make separates itself from Milton and Shakespeare and Virgil and Homer because it has the gospel. It will not harm the essence of the literature, it will strengthen it.

Nephi Anderson takes this and runs. I found it interesting that he took such a stark, scriptural approach in the first part and projects that high-religious characters into the ones (who are extremely similar to Anderson's contemporary's) in part 2. This brings the religious directly into the reader's every day life in an engaging way. Anderson, although he has a story to tell, gives a staunch religious prelude that the reader simply can't forget. I mean, you can just imagine the messenger sending the Flinders family -- I mean, Delsa and Homan down the tube.

One afterthought: I did notice that Anderson's Norwegian bit summons the vision of Milton's Adam and Eve, with Signe running away from Hr. Horbert and then looking at her reflection in the pool. And of course Milton was referencing Apollo and Daphne, and Echo and Narcissus. Does this throw a wrench in Whitney's warning against mimicking the classics, or does it show an extra layer of depth? 

Buckets' Literary Analysis of the Book of Mormon: Family Matters

There are multiples ways to examine Alma 56, or what Hardy defines as the first and second portion of Helaman's Letters to Moroni. If I could do this over again, I would highlight how the intent of Helaman's letter is transfored from Letter to historical document to scripture, but I decided to analyze Helaman's recollection of "the affairs of the people in that quarter of the land." While Helaman gives an honest, Moroni (and consequently us) learn much more about his "sons".


While many members the Church boast large families, only Helaman had two thousand children, and he was never lucky enough to get a daughter. Though not directly related, Helaman connects his bloodline and theirs together, going back to "our father Lehi." He then makes two different independent validations for calling them sons, first because of their "worthiness" and later on because of their youth. He also centers their purpose for battling around their doubtless maternal obeisance--they were mama's boys. Helaman successfully brings his "family" into battle.

Additionally, while the battle of Antiparah happens, the fallen are less remembered then the remaining. While the highest in command and others die, Helaman keeps the narrative subjective to his own army. It makes sense, but it takes away from the objective account that Mormon suggests Moroni was given when he introduces the letter. Not that Helaman's spin takes away from his accounting, but it does make a history an epic.

Bucket's Questions on LDS Christian Literature

1. From a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, does orthodox Church literature demand the same spiritual implications as orthodox texts including general conference talks and memoirs? i.e. does it become esoteric doctrine?

2. In what ways do Latter-Day Saint authors have to work around moral responsibilities when writing literature? 

3. How does the Church's fierce focus on doctrinal truth effect their writings? Can a work be meaningless and still be LDS literature?

4. With LDS history often given narrative already, why is it that we push back on rewriting the poetic "embellishments" that surround our early narrative to begin with? 

5. I have some issue with seeing journals, especially journals of prophets, as either doctrinal and/or literary, especially when I think of my own journals. How should faithful members treat personal records of the prophets when their personal writings may contradict with other writings? When does studying these things become historical, doctrinal, and literary?

On My 14th Birthday, My First View of Eternity

Eliza. R. Snow's wandering prose in "My First View of a Western Prairie" reminds the reader that early Latter-Day Saints had more than just a religion on their mind. Her poem begins with the more human issue with an exodus: missing home. It appears that Snow sees the vast landscape of the prairie and can't help but be reminded of the epic natures of the classics. Her new home becomes parallel to "the Ioninian fields," then just eclipses them with the spirit of "The Western World!"
As good as writing I see this as, I also can't help but think that she is reassuring her choice to go West with the saints. Perhaps Snow got help with her move by romanticizing, not spiritualizing, the event.

In Richards' "On my Fourteenth Birthday" she outlines a subtle difference between her innocence being taken not only by aging, but also by her religious belief in eternity. As if her birthday didn't buzzkill her youthful feelings, she exclaims that "she is just on the brink" of "earth-life passing away." That doesn't sound like a great title to a birthday party to me.
I had two responses to what she says is her "wiser reflections." This congruence between coming of age and professing religious knowledge reminds me of a bat-mitzvah, or any coming-of-age ceremony. On the other hand, Richards not only mentions her youth being robbed, but her adulthood too, as she caps in her Donne-esque closer "life, death, ye are passing away." By trading a mortal lens for an eternal view, it sounds like her life has lost its salt, ironically. then again, maybe that understanding just comes with age.

Having Ookos to See and Glazzies to Hear in all Things

Receiving spiritual enlightenment from A Clockwork Orange sounds about as bizarre as the time I told my new Elders Quorum President my favorite movie was Pulp Fiction... The TV-edit (no idea why I said that, it's Lawrence of Arabia). I like to believe I read it at the right time in my life. Otherwise, it would have been another weird reading assignment.

I was 16 and realizing how big and confusing the world was. People's interactions with religion fascinated me, and Alex DeLarge's certainly were fascinating. Underneath the dearth of violence and cruelty Alex gave and received there was still an interaction with God more complex than merely good and evil. And, in the final chapter, he realizes that his morals may change with age and experience. 

Though I wouldn't call A Clockwork Orange a Sunday read, the book helped me understand that eternal truths can pierce the darkest of trenches, and stir up spiritual notions in all things. I perceived God's influence to be even more powerful, and I began to denote the existence of a supreme creator in all things, whether it's The New Testament or Tupac's "A Rose That Grew From Concrete". I became part of a larger conversation, and it benefited the one I was creating with God.

Me contemplating life circa Junior year of high school

I've never watched A Clockwork Orange by the way, but it's probably a TV-edit choice as well.