After a short hiatus, we are excited to return to our READ LOCAL First series with three selections from Ogden poet Angelika Brewer.

Informally trained and largely self-taught, Brewer was taught to read, write and embrace her creativity by her teenage mother and her almost entirely blind grandmother. With encouragement from a high school English teacher, she discovered the world of Spoken Word Poetry. She has been a featured speaker at the Utah Conference for Teachers of English, Kiwanis Club, Ogden Pride Festival, PBS Utah, Standard Examiner online, Utah Arts Festival, Ogden Arts Festival, Literary Deathmatch, Concrete Rose, “Write About Now” cypher and many other events. She has self-published and self-bound a chapbook titled “I Don’t Want to Miss You,” and published in the compilation “First Moon Manual,” and has over 100 digital publishings. She has coordinated poetry slams, open mics, art shows and mixed arts events in Utah cities. She began writing about Ogden’s art scene for 15 Bytes in June, 2022.

In July, Ogden City announced Brewer as their new poet laureate.

Dear Poet,

Despite your everdancing
wrist and steady breath,
right between the line
you like and the (almost) rhym-
ing one, smashed in a small space
or a large

gap,
you will find bad days.

You will be c funeral ut organ
or an o ambulance ff siren.

You will be swallowed
by the gut of a heavy
blanket, the kind that
begs you not to set
      an alarm.

You will be interrupted

by the scent of an ex-lover’s
bed sheet or your late
grandmother’s perfume

and in that quiet place,
the pen will bargain with you.

Take it’s offer,
even if it isn’t reasonable.
Or don’t.

But, remember that in the case
you decline it’s efforts to
persuade you back to
the trusted lands,
it will always be there
calling for your hands
and how loving a gesture:
to be a thing that only exists
for you to be loud again.

The Eulogies Read at Her Funeral Weren’t Even About Her

They spoke of rainbows
like the tail-end of her long walk,
“She left them everywhere she went.”
They proclaimed.

“She loved us sunshine big—
radiated that kind of bright care
from within so everyone around her
could grow taller and sturdier.

She was selfless.”
They plead with the sky.
“Give her back to me.
I’ll tell her how she
made rooms feel airless;

She was that beautiful to look at.
Her favorite color had to be
yellow, because she wrapped all of
our gifts in banana shades.”

They wish they could hug her again-
Take one last breath of her warmth.
And that love or hers was profound,
but her favorite color was purple
and she was an artist
and she was a terrible cook,
but not really.
She just had a hard time with measurements.
And directions.
And math.

“She was my favorite person.”
They cry.
“I don’t know who I am without her”

Parasomnia

Obliterate every thought of me.
Pick me out of your teeth.
Clear your sinuses of my smell.
Burn my photos.
If you hear music that was once
sung in my voice,
turn it off.

Stop saying my name.
Turn yourself inside out
and scrape your stomach
of any remnant of it
you may have swallowed
by mistake.
Get rid of anything
that reminds
you I exist(ed.)

And when you wake up tomorrow
you will feel like you have lost,
because you saw me in a dream
despite every righteous attempt
to wash your hands of me.
Even your best effort can not
convince your subconscious
that they are clean.

READ LOCAL First

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