Legendary poet Carol Lynn Pearson on how she loves ‘parts’ of the LDS Church — and ‘left’ others

Carol Lynn Pearson, renowned Latter-day Saint poet, playwright and activist, began keeping a nearly daily diary when she was a senior at Brigham Young High School in 1956. And she never stopped. The first of her four volumes, which is out now, reads like a chronicle of Mormonism’s intellectual history from the 1960s through 1980s. Pearson, who grew up in Utah and now lives in California, comments on the battle over civil rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as the issues of patriarchy and polygamy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her first book of poetry, “Beginnings,“ sold an astounding 150,000 copies, making her one of Mormonism’s earliest celebrities. The feisty writer went on to produce several more bestsellers, including “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy” and “No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones.” Pearson is a lively storyteller as she recounts conversations with top Latter-day Saint leaders, including church President Dallin Oaks (whom she knew when he led Brigham Young University) and longtime Relief Society General President Belle Spafford. And she movingly describes in “Goodbye, I Love You,” falling in love with Gerald Pearson, having children with him, letting him go to live as a gay man, and welcoming him back to care for him as he died of AIDS.