{"id":41210,"date":"2020-12-27T19:45:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T00:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=41210"},"modified":"2020-12-27T19:45:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T00:45:21","slug":"new-series-literary-come-follow-me-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2020\/12\/new-series-literary-come-follow-me-dc\/","title":{"rendered":"New Series: Literary Come Follow Me D&C"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"\"With the beginning of the new year, I’m starting a new series of posts to support the Come Follow Me<\/em><\/strong> curriculum for the year, which I hope will provide those studying or teaching with additional relevant materials \u2014 literary materials \u2014 to enhance the study of the scriptures. In this case, the materials will be drawn from poetry published in church-oriented periodicals throughout the history of the church.

Long-time readers of Times and Seasons will recognize the format\u2014I’ve done this before for the Gospel Doctrine lessons. But the Come Follow Me curriculum has changed the lessons and the principles examined in each lesson. And since I last did this, the sources I have worked with have expanded significantly \u2014 I have many more poems to draw from.<\/p>\r\n

But, I’m sure that many readers, on reading this, will ask themselves “Why?”<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

I think that’s a reasonable question. Others are certainly basing regular posts on the Come Follow Me curriculum. What makes what I\u2019m doing different is that I\u2019m providing a resource that others aren\u2019t providing \u2014 the voice of those who Orson F. Whitney once called Prophets<\/a>: Poets.<\/p>\r\n

So then why provide poetry? I have many reasons. First, historically poetry has been the most popular form of literature for LDS writers, and as a result there is a lot of poetry available. My back of the envelope calculation suggest that at least 20,000 poems (and perhaps several multiples more) have been published in Mormon periodicals over the past nearly 200 years. Given the breath of the subjects covered in our cycle of Sunday School lessons, a large body of work is needed. Poetry also has the advantage of being a relatively compact form of literature\u2014a lot of content is found in relatively few words. And those words are often accompanied by a fair amount of ambiguity, which leads the reader or hearer to think more profoundly.<\/p>\r\n

And why poetry by LDS poets then? Well, I have already collected a lot of poetry by our poets\u2014poets who have put time and effort into exploring the subjects and principles of Mormon theology and doctrine. It will likely be much more difficult to find poems by others that explore topics like the word of wisdom or Mother-in-Heaven or baptism for the dead. [I won\u2019t say that its impossible, though. It might be a worthwhile project to find suitable non-LDS poetry or other works that support our lessons. I\u2019d be in favor of seeing that done!]<\/p>\r\n

I know there are many critics of Mormon literature, arts and culture out there who will roll their eyes at this idea. Too many complain that Mormon literature isn\u2019t good enough\u2014that the quality of our writing doesn\u2019t make it worth the effort. But, every time that I\u2019ve pinned down those who make these claims, I have discovered that they really haven\u2019t read that much of what has been published \u2014 because no one has. The bulk of Mormon literature has been published once and forgotten. If you\u2019ve read an unrepresentative sample of fewer than 100 of 20,000+ poems, how can you know how much of it is good?<\/p>\r\n

This view also ignores the very real fact that bad literature leads to good literature<\/a>. Like it or not, there are those poems, stories, pieces of art and other works that aren\u2019t that good that are part of our culture. Those works are often replaced eventually by better works. And in the meantime they paved the way for all works of art.<\/p>\r\n

I hope I\u2019ve made my point that this is a useful project. If I have, then readers will take the poetry I post and use it when they teach the lesson, or read it as part of their regular study using the Come Follow Me manuals.<\/p>\r\n

To make this easy, I hope to post at least one or two poems each week throughout the year on the Monday morning that starts the period for the lesson in the manual. For example, the first lesson in the D&C Come Follow Me manual covers December 28th through January 3rd, so I my first post will appear tomorrow (December 28th). This will give readers the week to read them as part of their study and teachers the week to decide if an how to use them in their lessons.<\/p>\r\n

As always, I welcome your feedback in the comments below or on any of the posts during the year.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m launching a new series of posts with poetry to go with the 2021 Come Follow Me lessons for the Doctrine and Covenants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":41213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2895,2462,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-come-follow-me-currculum","category-poetry-arts","category-sunday-school-lesson-doctrine-and-covenants"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/CFM2021.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41210"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41222,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41210\/revisions\/41222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}