"UTopia" With Snakes, Apples, and Iagos

Laura Nielson Baxter's poem, "UTopia," begins with two questions: "Have you ever heard / of a flawless paradise? / Who would tell about it?" The questions serve to grab the reader's interest, forcing them to pause and consider what it means for a place to be perfect, flawless. From these questions she moves on to state, "There's not much of a story there: / 'Life's Perfect, The End.'"
This statement grabbed my attention for two reasons. First, most people wish for a perfect world. They believe that if God is perfect and created the world, then the world should be perfect. However, that's not how God works for a very good purpose, which leads me to my second reason: good stories need conflict.
I'm currently taking a fiction writing class in which we've discussed what makes a good story. One of the key components is conflict. Without conflict a story is flat and shows no growth or progress on the part of the characters. In this poem, Baxter uses the idea of the need for conflict to point out that in a perfect world there is no conflict which means there is no growth. If there is no growth, the purpose of life is undermined. This sums up why the world isn't perfect, despite the fact that is was created by God. The world isn't perfect because we need to grow.
We as LDS people believe that there must be conflict or opposition in all things in order for the plan of salvation to work. There must be an opposite so that we can struggle, grow, and progress towards exaltation. This is why the world contains "a snake," "an apple," "heathens," "Pandora's Box," and "Iagos." We need conflict as personified in these allusions to the Bible, Greek mythology, and Othello illustrate. Without opposition, there is no purpose to life.
It's an important concept to understand and this poem presents it in a unique way that allows the reader to ponder on their personal perceptions of the world and why it has flaws.

Picture from pixabay.com

The poem that stood out to me during the listening section of this assignment was "Close" by Amber Watson. I did not particularly like the poem, but listening to it made me notice the alliteration in the poem and how it worked to create a gasping like sound similar to one who has injured themselves. I would have missed that if I'd only read the poem silently.

"hair like spun glass."

The poem in “Fire in the Pasture” I read that stuck out to me the most was My Daughter’s Favorite Bedtime Story by David Nielsen. It’s about how his daughter’s favorite bedtime story is Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman. He thinks it is interesting because he’s read it to her so many times, but she always wants to read it again. He uses a lot of descriptive language; “hair like spun glass” and “the black water smooth as sleep, or maybe death” being the most prominent. At one point, he reflects on if his daughter sees some of the details that he sees, then compares it to wondering if how seeing so much is how God feels about watching His children on earth:

Does she see in the sky/ a smile of teeth for a moon? I wondered once,/…if it’s how God feels, watching the pages,/knowing the end and the beginning,/ having already read it a hundred times,/ or more.