Review
Title: Hemingway in Paradise: And Other Mormon Poems
Author: Scott Hales
Publisher: Mormon Lit Lab
Genre: Poetry
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 61 pages + notes
Binding: Paper
ISBN: 979-8797250760
Price: 9.99
Reviewed by Heather Harris-Bergevin
When I first was given Hemingway in Paradise, I immediately expected a bit of a love fest for old Ernest and was reticent to begin reading. Thankfully, Darlene Young, one of my favorite LDS poets, wrote the prologue to this lovely book, and I quickly realized my grave mistake. Instead of hero worship for Hemingway and his compatriots, I found a twin flame to my own delight in retelling historical (and at times fictional) characters from new viewpoints and beautiful, mysterious poems that cause both thinking and feeling, which is the onus of excellent art in my mind.
Hales’ Hemingway, for example, is in an afterlife where he’s trying to figure out what to do with any eternity where bulls don’t bleed and mountains look more like folded great rhinoceros than white elephants. He joins the Elder’s Quorum with Fitzgerald. He contemplated what to do with infinite time. In so doing, he becomes much more relatable than, well, many perceptions of famed authors in this lifetime. In similar short works, Hales’ characters try to reconcile in death the complications they might not have raised they had in life. Columbus cannot figure out why he is in a self-imposed purgatory, having followed the call to the New World. Andre the Giant has a new and enjoyable wrestling match in a timeless time where he has no more pain. Joseph Merrick does not recognize his face in the mirror and must figure out how to live a new life with the contemporary beauty of body as well as of soul, and ultimately, is filled with Grace towards others, especially those who displayed his bones. The Cardiff giant goes out jogging late at night.
The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo play DnD together. Eliza is a bard, naturally. Lucy Mack Smith DMs.
The entire book is a delightful read and brief, which leaves the reader wanting more – not because it is in any way unfinished, but because a quick romp around in Hales’ skull is a delightful one. His everyday life poems, such as that of his child or wife in daily existence, are flavored with the spark of joy and love with which they are written.
In all things, Hales offers a massive dose of Grace and Love. Whether writing of the Mountain Meadows Massacre:
Religion slew those folks
just as sure as it saved me.
There are no two ways about it,
or contemplating Evel Knievel’s paradise:
Crowds are hard to impress
when there’s no death to defy.
What thrill is thrill-seeking, after all,
without kids cheering” …
Hales sparks happy electricity in your mind for similarly contemplating- how are historical figures just regular humanity, and how would they function in a world without, sometimes, their defining limitation? How would we?
I generally read with pen in hand, and there are few pages without my happy notations, figuring out the subject of the poem, and underlining beautiful lines.
Who will love this book:
Thankfully the author has left notes on his poems for those not quite as nerdy in history as those of us that rejoice in reading obscure facts (not everybody knows about the Cardiff giant, or who Nathan Bedford Forrest were, and some folks still think history is boring silly things). If you love poetry, this is a great book for you…but if you only like figuring out new perspectives and enjoy contemplating eternity, this is also a book for you. I’m taking it to the beach this summer so my nieces and nephews will pick it up, read, and ask me things like who Bathsheba Smith is, or Le Pétomane, so I can have smart discussions with clever minds. Well, and who doesn’t like to contemplate a good fart joke?
You won’t be disappointed, not even in Hemingway!
Happy Reading –
HB