Introduction to Ascensions From the Fall

Introduction

In 1971 when I graduated from Brigham Young University, unmarried and with a bachelor’s in English, I became a teacher. I taught for four years and then returned to BYU to get a master’s degree. My goal was to go for a doctorate, teach on a university level, and write the great American novel. As a warm-up exercise, I decided my master’s thesis would be a history of the world from Adam and Eve to the present in epic poetry.
I approached my advisor, Marge Wight, on the project and was quickly rebuffed. Marge had done her doctorate on some obscure modern novelist and what was good enough for Marge, would be good enough for me. She suggested the novels of Sinclair Lewis. I knew enough about Sinclair Lewis to know I did not want to spent any great amount of time with a mind like his. I countered with a proposal to do a study of blood imagery in the writings of Shakespeare with a focus on the play Cymbeline. She wouldn’t hear of it. It was Sinclair Lewis or nothing. I decided it was Sinclair Lewis or Wally Blackhurst.
Wally was a graduate student in economics at the University of Chicago whose marriage proposal was well timed. We exchanged vows in the Salt Lake Temple in December 1975 and I left the hallowed halls of academia to become a wife and mother. I played those parts with all the fervor and intensity I once reserved for the role of writer.
Twelve children later, I decided it was time to revisit my literary goals. The history of the world from Adam and Eve to the present had still not been penned. I decided to go at it, not as one long epic poem, but rather as a series of shorter poems. Using Shakespearean sonnets and other poetic forms, I began fitting the minds and spirits of Biblical characters like Abraham, Sarah, Ruth, Esther and Jesus to the poetry of Milton, Longfellow, Shakespeare and Poe.
Giving birth to these creations of my mind, while not as satisfying as giving birth to my own children, had its advantages. Molding little people was sometimes challenging. At times they were as adamant as Marge Wight about the way things ought to be, and I was equally determined they would be something else. I never ran into those impasses with the creations of my mind. They might come out with some major birth defects, but I could work them over until sounds, symbols and substance were in harmony. What evolved was a series of poems which had one thread in common. They all focused on the theme of ascending. Thus the title, Ascensions from the Fall.