{"id":27130,"date":"2014-11-15T22:49:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T04:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=27130"},"modified":"2023-11-18T15:12:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T21:12:32","slug":"sunday-blog-read-maximilian-werner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-maximilian-werner\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Maximilian Werner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"maximilian<\/a>SUNDAY BLOG READ<\/strong> is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each 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 Salt Lake City-based Maximilian Werner<\/strong>, an author and UofU professor.\u00a0Here he provides two poems, part of his collection Cold Blessings <\/em>which won 2nd place in the 2014 Utah Original Writing Competition.<\/p>\n

Sunday Blog Read continues to accrue a distinguished group of established and emerging Utah writers for your review and enjoyment.<\/p>\n

So curl up with your favorite cup of joe and enjoy the work of Max!<\/p>\n

#<\/h3>\n

Meditations on the Panicum Grass<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tonight, resting here on this hill<\/p>\n

I haven’t seen in years,<\/p>\n

something’s gone out of me. But it was there<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

before the curve on Canyon Road,<\/p>\n

in the knobby hum of the Yamaha<\/p>\n

as it knocked lightless against night<\/p>\n

on a trip to pimp beer and cigarettes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was in the mink farm<\/p>\n

below the reservoir, in the eyes<\/p>\n

that met me from cages,<\/p>\n

in my friends who held sticks,<\/p>\n

who knew the way in,<\/p>\n

who picked cages near the door . . .<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They said to be ready when they opened,<\/p>\n

when the mink’s eyes would sting with light,<\/p>\n

our bodies would diminish and he’d come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes I’d hear it between words<\/p>\n

a girl wheezed at the bus stop<\/p>\n

on November mornings,<\/p>\n

or in the panting of dogs<\/p>\n

through broken slats,<\/p>\n

in muffled zippers and lake ice<\/p>\n

bunching up at night . . . and in the hisses<\/p>\n

from the mink’s stained mouth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something’s gone out of me. But I saw it<\/p>\n

in the outline of a man<\/p>\n

painted beneath a tree<\/p>\n

in Bedford, and on my brother’s face<\/p>\n

when he kissed his girlfriend<\/p>\n

in her casket, and on her face,<\/p>\n

and on a road that led to an accident.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I saw it in my mother’s hand<\/p>\n

when she wrote my name<\/p>\n

in the hospital ledger,<\/p>\n

and in the fissure of a Dalmatian’s skull.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was what I felt watching windows<\/p>\n

closing in a house across the field,<\/p>\n

where later I stooped to spy<\/p>\n

the horsy nakedness of a girl<\/p>\n

my sister’s age. What I felt<\/p>\n

when the panicum grass sagged<\/p>\n

in July, when I asked<\/p>\n

to identify the body of a boy<\/p>\n

because I was there<\/p>\n

and chances were I knew him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I knew the want . . .<\/p>\n

Of deep water and an empty bed.<\/p>\n

Of skin cooled by vinegar.<\/p>\n

Of new shoes.<\/p>\n

What I should have said but didn’t.<\/p>\n

What I did say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of lies and the hours it took to think of them.<\/p>\n

The mink farmer and the man standing<\/p>\n

in porch-light with his shotgun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of spooked horses heading for barbed wire<\/p>\n

and his failure to stop them<\/p>\n

as I laid low in the barn rafters,<\/p>\n

heart-throated, hoping he had sons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Originally appeared in the Sierra Nevada College Review<\/em>)<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Occidents<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I never thought my father was a man<\/p>\n

who knew horses until we stood inside<\/p>\n

my uncle’s corral, early eyed, thinking<\/p>\n

if we were horses we would like now<\/p>\n

to be let out on the land, dewy and limbed<\/p>\n

with algarroba and dark mata bush.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When he teetered the beam<\/p>\n

that kept them in, the horses scared<\/p>\n

down a road, their hinds slick as blocks<\/p>\n

cut from the sea quarries, a peach sweat<\/p>\n

beading their noses the soft of salt water,<\/p>\n

and the two of us ran behind them,<\/p>\n

doing all we could to seem human.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Originally appeared in Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art<\/em>)<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

Copyright, Maximilian Werner, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Evolved\"<\/a>Based in Salt Lake City, Maximilian Werner is the author of three narrative nonfiction books, including Gravity Hill<\/em><\/a>, Evolved<\/em><\/a>, Black River Dreams <\/em>as well as the novel Crooked Creek<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 Information about them can be found here<\/a>.<\/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>, Mike Dorrell<\/a>, Susan Elizabeth Howe<\/a>, Star Coulbrooke<\/a>, Brad Roghaar<\/a> and Jerry Vanleperen<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUNDAY BLOG READ is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each 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. Today, 15 Bytes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":27142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,2513],"tags":[26,2156,321,1301,2157],"class_list":["post-27130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","category-read-local-first","tag-15-bytes","tag-cold-blessings","tag-maximilian-werner","tag-sunday-blog-read","tag-utah-original-writing-competitiion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/maximilian-werner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 03:20:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27130"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71810,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27130\/revisions\/71810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}