A Mormon literary backcountry where words and place come together.

 

 

 

 

Mormon Artist Magazine interviews … me

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Mormon Artist Magazine has published a fun interview they did with me for their current issue.  I’ve not often been interviewed–just one phone interview where I wound up misquoted–so I appreciate Mormon Artist’s interest in my work and attention to detail during this process.
The pics accompanying are unfortunately not as fine as I’d like, but [...]

WIZ Kids: Our Very Own Toad Hall by Val K.

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

“Look, here’s Fezzika,” my mother said, bending down to point out the Woodhouse toad tucked under the garden stone. We had discovered the amphibian’s house a few days earlier, and I was fascinated by the placement choice. She had dug into the soil under a cornerstone edging the flowerbed beside the main path through the [...]

A big “Thank you” to Spring Runoff participants

Monday, May 10th, 2010

I would like to thank personally each participant in the 2010 Spring Poetry Runoff Celebration.  You helped make the Runoff a very successful event this year, not just for me but for readers and other participants.  I hope everyone enjoyed the poetry and all-around gathering of talent as much as I did.  The list of [...]

“Naming Spring” by Sandra Skouson

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Today the secret names of everything
come back, the ancient names.
Tribe-of-the-morning names
call to me from the wind, which I know
as shut-your-eyes-breath,
hands-over-your-ears, gone-with-the-ice-song,
hymn-rising-out-of-cottonwood-sap.
Smell-of-dogwood; it is called,
smell-of-willow.
Daffodil has become again
small-pusher-of-earth-and-snow,
light-out-of-stone,
seawater-turned-sunshine.
This morning has its own name,
separate from all other mornings,
fire-in-the-clouds
waking-in-the-folds-of-mountain,
joy-of-long-shadows.
And now spring has brought
mist-in-my-breath,
shining-on-the-rocks,
quick-and-noisy-in-the-canyon,
to make soft soil in the garden
where I kneel for the first time
on the almost-warm-gift-to-growing
and work [...]

“Waiting for Spring” by Karen Kelsay

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

October, what will you bestow? You’ve left
the tulips and long daffodils unborn,
and spreading ferns aloof in darkest glens;
your brown leaves have revealed a scarlet thorn
to snag the frosty mornings. Mallards will
not light upon the weir, and open skies
remove their lightest blue. The fallow rose
is waiting for the spring–and like my eyes,
discolored branches search for green. [...]

“Pruning the Blood Plum Tree” by Warren Hatch

Monday, April 19th, 2010

More than any winter I had known, that winter.
In evening I pruned against winter’s loss.
The sky echoed from the first spring’s rain.
At my touch, the tree quivered, beading.
The tree arched like two hands cupped,
reaching up, fingers outstretched.
Sarah stood in the light of the door,
leaning against a white pillar,
calling me home from the dark;
as each branch [...]

“Te Kore” by Tyler Chadwick

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Haere mai:
I’ve anticipated your soul-deep
craw. Stewed pork bones and potatoes
to tender verging on cream. Sent the kids,
brown bodies sliding between the breeze,
to gather more puha from the fenceline.
Sonchus oleraceus: slides from the tongue
into the boil just long enough to soften
the cellulose, give the broth enough bite
to open the palate, throw windows wide
on sense. To bathe [...]

Also, today is Wilderness Interface Zone’s birthday

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

I almost forgot!  Today, WIZ turns one.  Happy Birthday to us! I’ve been preoccupied and haven’t come up with any fun thing to do in celebration, but I would like to run out a line of thanks yous.
Thanks–deep, ever-flowing thanks–to Wm Morris, for helping me open this space and for providing solid support.
Thanks, WIZ readers, [...]

Guest Post: “Field Notes from Pittsburgh,” by Lora

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

I live in the Pittsburgh area, in the suburbs. Several mornings ago I was up a little earlier than usual, and the sun seemed to be coming up later than usual. I had the opportunity to watch out my kitchen window as dawn came to my neighborhood. Looking one direction out my window gives me [...]

Ornaments

Monday, December 14th, 2009

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my husband and I made a dash to Moab, over an hour away, to pick up ingredients for my special needs daughter’s designer formula.  Moab has a health food store, Moonflower Market, which sells several of the ingredients we use in her special blend.  This tourist town also sports a large [...]