{"id":28305,"date":"2015-03-15T08:19:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T14:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=28305"},"modified":"2018-11-07T14:08:39","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T20:08:39","slug":"sunday-blog-read-danielle-beazer-dubrasky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-danielle-beazer-dubrasky\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Danielle Beazer Dubrasky"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dani<\/a>READ LOCAL First<\/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 Cedar City-based poet Danielle Beazer Dubrasky <\/strong>who here provides three works, including the opening poem from her\u00a0 chapbook, Ruin and Light<\/em>, forthcoming in May from Anabiosis Press<\/a>.<\/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 Danielle Dubrasky!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From<\/em> “The Sand Man\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I
\nThis is the story of two children who wander into the desert<\/p>\n

and see a burning bush\u2014creosote\u2014the oldest plant on earth.
\nThe smell of it after rain is of railroad tracks crossing desolation,
\npassing all the lives scattered at the root of the chaparral.
\nThe brother and sister have followed him<\/em>\u2014
\nthe man who coaxed them toward a mirage
\nwith the promise they would see God.<\/p>\n

In the desert there are circles of seeds, tracks of snakeskin,
\ndiadems of sunflowers crushed into a map.<\/p>\n

He does not give them manna but hops and hashish.
\nHe takes them into the desert that sparkles at first of crushed jewels.
\nThe sand shifts, the diamonds cut their feet.<\/p>\n

He takes them into the desert and says hush.<\/em>
\nHe is not waiting for them to grow up
\nbut to soften and fatten by feeding them sweet things\u2014<\/p>\n

but no, that story belongs to two other children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(originally appeared in Sugar House Review<\/em>)<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Great Basin<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am no nearer to what the sea tries to loosen wedged in rock\u2014
\na sorrow slipped between a trapped metal cap
\nand glass shattered along another coast.
\nThe truth is I don\u2019t live near the ocean
\nbut in a desert town I refuse to see
\nbuilt on an alluvial fan of gypsum soil shifting<\/p>\n

beneath cracked plaster and skewed door frames;
\nbeneath miles of silver sage, rabbit brush, dry lakes
\nand wind trembling through pinyon rooted along the highway.
\nI leave my own trace, planting wisteria and honeysuckle,
\nSouthern foreigners thirsting for water.<\/p>\n

I blink and the town is gone, drowned in a sea of fossils.
\nWhat that sea left behind is the desert I walk through,
\na sorrow slipped between shale and trilobites.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(originally appeared in Fire in the Pasture)<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Ceiling Fan Spins Your Childhood<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ceiling fan spins your childhood through the smallest sounds\u2014
\nmoths tapping their bodies against the screen,<\/p>\n

your father charting Cygnus in the August sky,<\/p>\n

rain on the window late at night that follows you<\/p>\n

into the eyes of children who have never heard rain,
\nthe last thing your mother says to you<\/p>\n

before you know it is the last thing.
\nYou chart journeys on maps, memorize legends,<\/p>\n

highways, train routes, rivers,
\nand when you follow roads beneath constellations<\/p>\n

the sky becomes both land and sea for traveling animals.
\nYou ride trains that cross rivers, watch landmarks<\/p>\n

unfold on the arms and faces of those sitting nearby\u2014
\na scar on the left cheek, a red mole, a swan tattooed on a wrist\u2014<\/p>\n

and when you ride to stations beneath the earth
\nyour voice spins through the tracks and maps the darkness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(from the collection Ruin and Light)<\/em><\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ruin-and<\/a>Danielle Beazer Dubrasky<\/strong> is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Southern Utah University. Her chapbook Ruin and Light<\/em> won the 2014 Anabiosis Press Chapbook Competition. Her poetry has also been published in Contrary Magazine<\/a> (where 6 new poems by her have just been published online), <\/em>Sugar House Review, ECOllective, Tar River Poetry, Weber Studies, CityArts, <\/em>and Petroglyph<\/em>. She has been a finalist for White Pines Press, a semi-finalist for Backwaters Press and Elixir Press, and a fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She is also a two-time recipient of the Utah Arts Council first place award in poetry. She is the poetry editor for Contemporary Rural Social Work <\/em>journal and has developed a curriculum of poetry writing exercises to be used in poetry therapy groups. She grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, but has spent the last 20 years in southern Utah.<\/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> Jerry Vanleperen<\/a>, Maximilian Werner<\/a>, Markay Brown<\/a>, Natalie Young<\/a>, and Michael Sowder<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

READ LOCAL First 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":28306,"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":[35,2513],"tags":[2294,2291,2293,2292,797],"class_list":["post-28305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first","tag-anabiosis-press-chapbook-competition","tag-danielle-beazer-dubrasky","tag-poetry","tag-ruin-and-light","tag-southern-utah-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dani-Photo-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 06:07:22","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\/28305","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=28305"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39966,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305\/revisions\/39966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}