{"id":26009,"date":"2014-07-06T08:38:10","date_gmt":"2014-07-06T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=26009"},"modified":"2023-11-18T15:13:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T21:13:56","slug":"sunday-blog-read-susan-elizabeth-howe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-susan-elizabeth-howe\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Susan Elizabeth Howe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"susanhoweblog\"<\/a>READ LOCAL First<\/strong> is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each first Sunday of the month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir.<\/p>\n

Today, 15 Bytes features poet Susan Elizabeth Howe who provides here four poems, the first from her most recently published collection Salt<\/a> (Signature Books) and three that are new and unpublished.<\/p>\n

Sunday Blog Read<\/strong> continues to collect a distinguished group of established and emerging Utah writers for your review and enjoyment. So curl up with your favorite cup of joe and enjoy the work of Susan Elizabeth Howe!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Law of Salt<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From God\u2019s body sweat flowed<\/p>\n

into the seas during the six days<\/p>\n

He worked on the world.<\/p>\n

This was the beginning of salt.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Day<\/i>, of course, meant eon<\/i><\/p>\n

and so salt sang through oceans,<\/p>\n

seeped into rock, gathered itself<\/p>\n

into veins in the body<\/p>\n

of the earth.<\/p>\n

This formed the patience of salt.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Small anonymous men burrowed<\/p>\n

into the earth seeking it,<\/p>\n

their first descent a tunnel<\/p>\n

through darkness and dripping water<\/p>\n

that bled into an underground lake.<\/p>\n

They brought down a boat<\/p>\n

to float themselves and one flickering<\/p>\n

torch across the surface, part savor,<\/p>\n

part fear.<\/p>\n

This led to the harvest of salt.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More valuable than gold, it could preserve,<\/p>\n

not merely decorate, flesh.<\/p>\n

Strips of flesh cured in salt.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the retreat of a landlocked<\/p>\n

sea, the water fell<\/p>\n

into a saturated brine<\/p>\n

in which a body cannot sink.<\/p>\n

This gathered the powers of salt.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A hard, slick pan left by that sea<\/p>\n

spreads for days into the west.<\/p>\n

A burning skin of salt.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The wild mare and her foal<\/p>\n

skittering across the flats will be found<\/p>\n

on their sides, tongues out, hide<\/p>\n

and muscles perfect, eye sockets<\/p>\n

crusted.<\/p>\n

Purified by salt.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And yet the sprinkled tomato, blood<\/p>\n

in our bodies, the taste<\/p>\n

of sex, all remnants of God.<\/p>\n

We eat death as we eat salt.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

from Salt<\/em> (Signature Books, 2013), reprinted with permission.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wedding Song<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

To celebrate your marriage,<\/p>\n

I scatter aspen leaves<\/p>\n

across the shining river<\/p>\n

of your new life.\u00a0 Swans already<\/p>\n

nest there; Canada geese<\/p>\n

exhausted by the journey<\/p>\n

stars and planets call them to,<\/p>\n

the sun and seasons, rest<\/p>\n

and feed before their next flight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A mountain river, quiet,<\/p>\n

where moose wade, browsing,<\/p>\n

where black bears drink at night,<\/p>\n

so clear that rainbow trout glint<\/p>\n

in the eddies, water sparkles<\/p>\n

from the surface to the depths,<\/p>\n

pools give back each unique sky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Won\u2019t you carry us with you<\/p>\n

through banks of chokecherries,<\/p>\n

wild roses, raspberry brambles,<\/p>\n

over cataracts and around<\/p>\n

treacherous rocks as creeks<\/p>\n

feed in and the river widens<\/p>\n

into the future, nourishing<\/p>\n

the valley\u2019s fields and orchards,<\/p>\n

each town and village in its path?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 –for Rachael and Nick<\/i><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Beauty Treatment<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m here for the deluxe package\u2014full-body<\/p>\n

massage, geyser mudpack, pedicure,<\/p>\n

face and hair later, after my kale smoothie.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What languor in the foot bath, languor<\/i>,<\/p>\n

with its lolling u, which I follow<\/p>\n

through dense vegetation into the Old South,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

mint juleps on the verandah; women<\/p>\n

rubbing up their gold lace with soda,<\/p>\n

vinegar, alcohol, chalk, and ashes;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

women like China dolls bleaching<\/p>\n

their faces in lemon juice, smoothing<\/p>\n

their hair with lard and bear fat pomade<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in the hot, moist summer, basting themselves<\/p>\n

inside hoop skirts starched and frilled<\/p>\n

with flounces, puffs, cords, quillings, ruches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAshley, Ashley, I\u2019m melting.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ashley doesn\u2019t care,<\/p>\n

so Scarlett comes back with me<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to hang around the Salon and Day Spa<\/p>\n

reading Vogue<\/i> and Elle<\/i>,<\/p>\n

thrilled to get out of those skirts,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to wait her turn at the wash basin,<\/p>\n

admiring the advances\u2014orange,<\/p>\n

purple, blue, green color choices,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

hair dyes only slightly caustic,<\/p>\n

bikini wax, nail glue, lash extensions,<\/p>\n

even an exclusive bird-poop facial.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abishag <\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLet there be sought for my lord the king<\/p>\n

a young virgin . . . that my lord the king<\/p>\n

may get heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

no one asked would I like<\/p>\n

to sleep with that senile king<\/p>\n

I chose what I could malachite<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and amethyst gems apricot<\/p>\n

blossoms worked into silk<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

they chose the thin robe open<\/p>\n

below my waist took me<\/p>\n

to his chamber<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I lay as if with mist<\/p>\n

as if with flax soaking how can I say<\/p>\n

his body less than the skin of a weak<\/p>\n

sheep in a year I\u2019d survived<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

for the rest of my life I swam<\/p>\n

in the nine emerald pools<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

kept my own<\/p>\n

chambers chose<\/p>\n

my companions<\/p>\n

composed for the flute and the lyre<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I ate pomegranates<\/p>\n

after the crass<\/p>\n

task the elders forced me to<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

pomegranates I must<\/p>\n

tell myself better<\/p>\n

than human fruit<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Copyright, Susan Elizabeth Howe, 2014.<\/p>\n

\"salt\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Susan Elizabeth Howe was born and raised in Utah and feels deeply attached to its people and landscapes.\u00a0 One of her enthusiasms has been to see Utah represented with depth and clarity in contemporary literature.\u00a0 She currently lives in three different parts of the state: Ephraim, where she and her husband Cless Young share a family home; Utah Valley, where she teaches; and Grover, in Wayne County, near Capitol Reef National Park. Her second poetry collection, Salt<\/i>, was published by Signature Books in 2013. [Read reviews here<\/a> and here<\/a>.] She co-edited the collection Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women.\u00a0 <\/i>Her first collection, Stone Spirits<\/i>, won the publication award of the Redd Center for Western Studies.\u00a0 Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker<\/i>, Shenandoah<\/i>, Southwest Review<\/i>, and other journals. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver and an M.A. from the University of Utah.\u00a0 She is a reviewer and contributing editor of Tar River Poetry<\/i>, and a member of the arts and sciences editorial board of BYU Studies<\/i>. In the past she has served as poetry editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/i>; poetry editor of Literature and Belief<\/i>; managing editor of the Denver Quarterly<\/i>; <\/i>and the editor of Exponent II.\u00a0 <\/i>She is on the English Department faculty of Brigham Young University.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Past featured writers in <\/em>15 Bytes\u2019 Sunday Blog Read: Katharine Coles<\/a>, Michael McLane<\/a>, Darrell Spencer<\/a>, Larry Menlove<\/a>, Christopher Bigelow<\/a>, Shanan Ballam<\/a>, Steve Proskauer<\/a>, April Wilder<\/a>, Calvin Haul<\/a>, Lance Larsen<\/a>, Joel Long<\/a>, Lynn Kilpatrick<\/a>, Phyllis Barber<\/a>, David Hawkins<\/a>, Nancy Takacs<\/a>, and Mike Dorrell<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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