Psalm & Selah

By Mark Bennion

These largely first-person narrative poems imaginatively and sympathetically get inside the minds of the people who lived the scriptures: Abish, Sam, one of the sons of Helaman, Chemish, Gadianton, and many, many more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parables
• Release date: Dec 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452421995

Mark Bennion

Mark D. Bennion grew up in Wisconsin, Utah, and Idaho. In his undergraduate days he studied at both Ricks College and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He majored in English and minored in Korean. Upon graduating from BYU, he lived in Jerusalem for a year and studied at the Hebrew University. After his time in the Holy Land, he attended the MFA program at the University of Montana and graduated from there in 2000. Currently, he and his wife, Kristine, are raising their family in the Upper Snake River Valley. Mark teaches writing and literature classes at Brigham Young University-Idaho. Psalm & Selah is his first book.

Book preview

Versions of these poems have appeared or will appear in the following publications, to which grateful acknowledgment is made.

BYU Studies, Astonishment, The Dream

caesura, Dearth

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Caught Up, Compass, My Brother’s Bed, Sober Child, Sorrow and Song

Irreantum, Coronation Plea, Curious, Dear Father, Love, Abish, Nahom, Swollen, We Have

LDS Life, Treasury, Tribute

Natural Bridge, Sowing

Perspective, I Will Go Again, Consolation, Rameumptom, Song of Arrival, Temple

Steinbeck Review/Steinbeck Studies, Price

During the production of this book, many have influenced the course of my spiritual ponderings and journeys. Blessings to the BYU–Idaho administration and English department for the time and monetary means to work on this manuscript. I am also grateful to Jim Richards for his careful reading of this collection and for our various and sundry discussions over the years regarding poetry, racquetball, music, etc. Special kudos to the Epiphanic Dews—Dawn Anderson, Matt Babcock, Janine Gilbert, Jim Papworth, and Ellen Pearson—you talented ones who have workshopped and bettered a number of poems herein. Your insights and banter have allowed me to rethink my work and aesthetic. Moreover, I thank Andra Hansen, Christie Lewis, David and Dawn Pulsipher, and others for their willingness to read this work and offer constructive criticisms. I further appreciate the great support from colleagues and students, both past and present. A mountain of gratitude to my parents, siblings, and in-laws for their love and guidance. Thank you for your authenticity, humor, and devotion. To my daughters, I send a thousand kisses for loving me regardless of whether or not I write poems. And to Kristine, my best reader and friend, I thank you for the years behind us, the one accompanying us, and for the many to bind us in the seasons to come.

Author’s Note

These poems came into being due to my love for the Book of Mormon—a powerful yet still relatively unknown text to many people in the world. In no way am I trying to offer an alternative for a first-hand reading of this sacred work, nor is this poetry manuscript an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Furthermore, this collection is not trying to clarify doctrine or history. Rather, these works represent an attempt at imagining the inner lives of fascinating people, places, and events that appear for a few verses in the Book of Mormon and then drift into the shadows of the past.

Psalm & Selah

I speak of the forest of stone, the desert of the prophets, the ant-heap of souls, the congregation of tribes, the house of mirrors, the labyrinth of echoes,

I speak of the great murmur that comes from the depths of time, the incoherent whisper of nations uniting or splitting apart, the wheeling of multitudes and their weapons like boulders hurling down, the dull sound of bones falling into the pit of history.

Octavio Paz

Tribute

However much I admire Nephi

I know it is with Sam

I hold the greater kinship.

Something drawn out between us

Like an unspoken monologue

I can hear inside myself,

As so many hear inside themselves—

This percolating, mobile

Snowmelt forging a stream.

Yet others name the movement

Bring to light that eloquent, spoken gift,

Supernal and warning,

Born of blizzard visions and volcanic dreams

Of God’s word lofted from a mountain top

And prayer strong as a tidal wave.

Even as the world chases after blinding antics

Consciously proclaiming

Choices

Out of the gargoyle of some new sin,

Even as charity and pillage square off

In remote villages and city centers

Not that this news is beyond my scope

Or even worth dredging up

Once again . . .

I just kneel down to knowing

A story has more than a rebellious

Brother

And a future prophet. There are those braced

Against a holy staff, adjusting their shoes,

Unnoticed

Wilderness & Wings

Thou art my hiding place; thou

shalt preserve me from trouble;

thou shalt compass me about with

songs of deliverance. Selah.

Psalms 32:7

The Dream

I sleep to murmur and cracked wheat.

My eyes half-open, kaffiyeh rolled back,

lamp on and trimming, the goats and