In 2015, Beirut's district president takes the dangerous road to Damascus once a month to bring the sacrament to Syrian Saints. In 1904, a ward rallies around a mentally ill member in Salt Lake City after he's institutionalized. In 1844, a sister gathers new members on the South Pacific atoll of Anaa and teaches them the gospel by singing hymns from dusk until midnight. The twenty-two poems in Song of Names draw images from the lives of ordinary Latter-day Saints from many times and places to make a mosaic of discipleship. Accompanied by historical introductions, reflective essays, and original fine art sketches, this collaboration between James Goldberg, Ardis E. Parshall, and Carla Jimison is a monument to two centuries of struggle and faith.

In this follow-up to his 2015 collection, Let Me Drown With Moses, James Goldberg explores themes of suffering, community, faith, and discipleship with both an unflinching commitment to God and a clear-eyed perspective on the difficulties of mortality. Whether telling stories from Goldberg's LDS ward, chronicling his experience in chemotherapy, imagining alternate histories, or commenting on the scriptures and society, the poems in Phoenix Song describe what it means both to feel burned to the ground and to rise from the ashes.

The forty-nine poems in Let Me Drown With Moses are not for those who think of religion as another name for self-help. They are for those who still believe in a God who wrestles. For those who think faith should challenge as much as it comforts. For those who would follow a prophet chest-deep into the Red Sea, even before the waters part.Drawing on imagery from scripture and Mormon history, Let Me Drown With Moses gives voice to the spiritual longing of a people and does its own small part to keep religion a living language in the 21st century.