Association for Mormon Letters
Literary Awards

1979

Noting that "either story alone would qualify for the prize," the prize committee commented that "both stories achieve added dimensions of meaning from the submerged yet constantly present conversion patterns alluded to in the titles, the recurring tension between wilderness and the disciplines of Mormon community, and the movingly realized ambiguities of loss and gain."

The committee cited "Hit the Frolicking, Rippling Brooks" as "a rich, witty, and sophisticated story of contemporary Mormon life, an appreciation of the ordinary which avoids easy affirmations and easy negations alike' with 'technical maturity and control."

Judges called this collection "the present and doubtless temporary culmination of Clinton Larson's poetic effort; a case of vintage Larson, with all the traits that baffle, irritate, delight, and enlarge his readers." The award also acknowledged his "long and gigantically productive" writing career "which has made him a huge, potent paternal presence on the imaginative horizons of younger Mormon writers."

"God's Plenty" was cited as "an example of humane and disciplined Mormon imagination searching and shaping the hard element of personal experience."

In their evaluation of "Grandmother," the judges noted its "lean and austere grace" and singled it out as "witnessing one way the sources of Mormon tradition can nourish contemporary Mormon poetry."

The judges awarded the prize for the essay's contribution, among other things, "for probing the relationship of autobiography and history" and "for analyzing some literary possibilities offered by the genre."