Recently at the Latter-day Saint blog\u00a0From the Desk<\/em>, Kurt Manwaring discussed the question of who wrote D&C 76 in poetic form<\/a>. The short answer is that it’s likely Joseph Smith wasn’t the sole author of the poem–he probably worked with a Latter-day Saint poet like William W. Phelps or Eliza R. Snow to create the poetic rendition. For context, Manwaring shared that:<\/p>\n In early 1843, William W. Phelps composed a poem entitled, \u201cVade Mecum.\u201d While we don\u2019t know exactly why he wrote the verses, Phelps invited Joseph Smith to reply and join him \u201cin contemplating a heavenly paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n At approximately the same time, Joseph Smith\u2019s lawyer, Justin Butterfield, referred to the Prophet\u2019s lack of prophetic poetry in his closing statement. In particular, Butterfield said that the only thing which separated Joseph from prophets of old was his inability to prophesy in poetic verse.<\/p>\n When a poetic version of Section 76 was eventually published in\u00a0Times & Seasons<\/em>, specific mention was made of the desire to show Butterfield that \u201cmodern Prophets can prophesy in poetry.\u201d\u00a0<\/sup>The poem was called \u201cThe Answer,\u201d and thus also served as a reply to Phelps\u2019s original poem. . . .<\/p>\n However, most scholars today don\u2019t think\u00a0Joseph Smith<\/a>\u00a0authored the poetic version of D&C 76. Van Orden argues that Phelps ghostwrote the poem, and suggests that modern scholars also \u201cgenerally\u201d accept Phelps as the author.\u00a0Similarly, the Joseph Smith Papers Historical Introduction to \u201cThe Answer\u201d identifies Phelps as the most likely author, while also allowing that that the Prophet may have worked with Parley P. Pratt or Eliza Snow to produce the poem.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thus, the poem may have been created in answer to comparisons with Hebrew prophets like Isaiah, who used poetic forms in their writings. While it can be argued that some of the revelations have a bit of poetry to them, there was a need to show something that was clearly poetic in nature. Yet, in creating that answer, President Smith seems to have relied on help from others. Still, the poem is an important one. If you want to read more or to see the text of the poem, hop on over to From the Desk<\/em> and read the poetic version of D&C 76<\/a>.<\/p>\n That doesn’t mean that Joseph Smith was not involved in writing the poetic version of D&C 76 or that he never wrote poetry. In fact, another poem that has been in the news lately is one that is found in the recently-released fourteenth volume in the Documents series<\/a> of the Joseph Smith Papers. Barbara Neff visited Nauvoo in May of 1844, carrying an autograph book with her. When she asked for Joseph Smith’s signature, he wrote a short poem to Barbara Neff<\/a>:<\/p>\n The truth and virtue both are good It’s a clever little poem, written in his own handwriting. So, he wasn’t incapable of writing poetry, it just may not have been his strong suit. And that’s okay. When it comes down to it, a poetic gift is not a prerequisite to revelation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joseph Smith rarely wrote poetry, but there are a couple notable exceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":44653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2890,2910,2462],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-desk","category-joseph-smith","category-poetry-arts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/001c9ee4_medium.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44641","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\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44641"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44654,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44641\/revisions\/44654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwhen rightly understood
\nBut Charity is better Miss
\nThat takes us home to bliss
\nand so forthwith
\nremember Joseph Smith<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Joseph-Smith-poem-to-Barbara-Neff-800x417.jpg\")