{"id":28861,"date":"2015-05-17T08:59:13","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T14:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=28861"},"modified":"2020-07-28T18:04:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T00:04:40","slug":"sunday-blog-read-jacqueline-osherow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-jacqueline-osherow\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Jacqueline Osherow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JackieREAD LOCAL First<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is 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 writer Jacqueline Osherow <\/strong>who here provides three poems, the first, a work-in-progress\/unpublished, and the second two from her latest collection Ultimatum from Paradise<\/em> (LSU Press, 2014).<\/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 Jacqueline Osherow<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Storm Clouds over Lupines: Villanelle<\/strong><\/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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lakeview, Montana<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Which is the mirror, field or sky?<\/p>\n

These silver-purple clouds or purple lupines<\/p>\n

in endless sagebrush, gray on silver-gray?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And what\u2019s that between them? Is that my<\/p>\n

reflection? I should move before it rains.<\/p>\n

But which is mirror? Is that field or sky<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

gazing at her likeness, lazily<\/p>\n

touching up the purple imperfections<\/p>\n

tarnishing her mirror\u2019s silver-gray?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or are they in cahoots?\u00a0\u00a0 See? they multiply:<\/p>\n

reflections of reflections of reflections.<\/p>\n

Perhaps they\u2019re both mirrors, field and sky<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

each redoubling the other\u2019s sovereignty<\/p>\n

across their spectrum\u2019s frugal variations:<\/p>\n

purple to silver, silver to gray.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What a pity I\u2019m in the way.<\/p>\n

But I flatter myself. The clouds and lupines<\/p>\n

don\u2019t even see me, just field and sky<\/p>\n

dissolving silver purple silver gray<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyright, Jacqueline Osherow, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

White on White<\/strong>
\nafter Kasimir Malevich<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the sort of painting I could never stand\u2014
\na white square askew on a white background\u2014<\/p>\n

one more aesthetic incarnation
\nof that swindled emperor, naked again,<\/p>\n

preening in his nonexistent clothes;
\nI\u2019d lived in Florence\u2014where painting breathes\u2014<\/p>\n

seen how inanimate materials
\n(gold beaten to dust, crushed-up jewels<\/p>\n

mixed for rich and lasting color with albumen)
\ncould be converted into pure emotion,<\/p>\n

how master after master after master
\nhad willed a chapel wall of fresh wet plaster<\/p>\n

to make the ephemeral hold still
\nalongside the godly, the impalpable.<\/p>\n

Why would you paint a white square askew
\non a white background when you could go<\/p>\n

anywhere at all, encompass anything?
\nIf the world failed us, at least a painting<\/p>\n

might offer us its aggregate of rapture.
\nI had a stake in this, longed to capture<\/p>\n

a bit of it myself (though my materials
\nwould be more modest, words instead of jewels)<\/p>\n

or at least exhaust myself in the attempt;
\nI was a seasoned dreamer and I dreamt,<\/p>\n

which sustained me for quite a number of years.
\nBut even the most stubborn of dreamers<\/p>\n

is forced to notice, sooner or later,
\nthat the world understands itself without her<\/p>\n

albeit flattering intrusion
\nand it\u2019s a meager place once illusion<\/p>\n

in all its glory is exposed as sham.
\nBesides, I\u2019ve squandered poem after poem.<\/p>\n

Just think of all the treasure I\u2019ve left stranded,
\nuncultivated, the unattended<\/p>\n

but manifest allegiances in things,
\nhow a presence, of its own accord, sings<\/p>\n

right within my own field of vision
\nand I always fail to take it down:<\/p>\n

the year the snow came late and the mountain
\nwas suddenly a tour-de-force of ermine<\/p>\n

white on the golden residue of aspens
\n(it\u2019s the winter slant of light that determines<\/p>\n

the color of their fur and not the snow)
\nor a June hike\u2014what?\u2014fifteen years ago,<\/p>\n

the mountainside a visual haiku:
\nfive mountain goats on the last patch of snow<\/p>\n

and I would leave them there, forgotten.
\nThat is, until, by accident I wandered in-<\/p>\n

To the wrong room at MOMA, turned around
\nto a white square askew on a white background<\/p>\n

and there were my mountain goats on snow.
\nKasimir Malevich had seen them too,<\/p>\n

how white craves white, how what\u2019s askew
\nyearns for some congenial milieu<\/p>\n

where it can lose itself, disappear.
\nThose stunning ermine that snowless year<\/p>\n

were neon on the gold leaves\u2019 makeshift carpets,
\nthrilling to witness, but ideal targets<\/p>\n

for even the most dull-eyed predator.
\nBetter to secure a sound white square<\/p>\n

however unremarkable, unsubtle.
\nA person has to settle for what\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

A white square on a white background, askew.
\nFive mountain goats on the last patch of snow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

from the collection Ultimatum from Paradise (used with permission)<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Golden Oldie<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even now, I can\u2019t hear the organ intro
\nto Percy Sledge\u2019s sultry when a man
\nloves a woman without that afternoon
\nreturning full force: it\u2019s on the radio —
\nyou\u2019 re painting? plastering? the little bedroom
\nand I\u2019m giant pregnant reading Middlemarch
\nfor my PhD exams on the glassed-in porch —
\nand suddenly you crank up the volume
\nuntil the entire house begins to shake.
\nDon\u2019t tell me there\u2019s no such thing as happiness.
\nYou racing down the stairs, ecstatic,
\nshouting listen to this! listen to this!
\nyour whole heart audible, mine pumping fast.
\nWe were young, infallible. It wouldn\u2019t last.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

from the collection Ultimatum from Paradise<\/em> (used with permission)<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

\"Ultimatum<\/a>Jacqueline Osherow<\/strong> is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently Ultimatum from Paradise<\/em><\/a> (LSU Press, 2014). She\u2019s received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a number of prizes from the Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker<\/em>, The Paris Review<\/em>, America Poetry Review<\/em>, the Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry<\/em>, The Longman Anthology of Poetry<\/em> , Best American Poetry<\/em> and The Norton Anthology of Jewish-American Literature<\/em>. She\u2019s Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Utah.<\/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>, 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>, Michael Sowder<\/a>, and Danielle Beazer Dubrasky<\/a> and Kevin Holdsworth<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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