Secular and religious students spend a lot of time evaluating the rightness of The Book of Mormon. Believers seek to establish the truth of the empirical claims made in and about the book, which are fundamental to their belief. Nonbelievers seek to disestablish these claims. It is a lot of great, scholarly, fun. But, it seems to me, that more time could be spent evaluating the goodness of The Book of Mormon . Suppose we grant that it is an ancient work, recovered in the nineteenth century, and translated by supernatural means. This would make it right, but the enlightened reader must still grant an even more obvious case against the book: it is not good. It is not good in a literary sense, to be sure, and we can look into that later, but it is not good in an ethical sense. I could cite its misogyny[1], brutality [2] , or injustice [3] , but for me, the glaring ethical failing in The Book of Mormon is its racism [4] . Early in the text, we pick up a thread of ...
Into the river, Compelled where it wandered, I gasped only to catch The need to gasp. A moment to think - back To the plummet, while Every sense battled. Screaming. Run. Cold ripped into me. Pain cut at my ankles. Wet suffocation, a Black abyss. Regret. Panic. Forget. Sadness. What was I thinking then? There is nothing worth this Fall into all of the Wild, good, night. Swim to the right again - Hit something under me - Slide over slimy scales: Swimming life The size of the creature, So calm in demeanor, The depth of the river Cannot match. Dying living Fishy Monster Right. Left. down. I cannot give into this, Mindless instinct kicks. Fuck what I’m dying for. I choose life. Right to the homeless place? Right to the family? Right to the miserable Loneliness? Left to the home I chose? Left to the cops and courts? Left to the battlefield? One soldier. Maybe staying. Maybe dying. Leg ripped open. Left to Sobriety. Left from the cavity. Left from the creature of Thrashing life. M...