{"id":32315,"date":"2016-02-21T11:21:22","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T17:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=32315"},"modified":"2023-12-03T10:50:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T16:50:43","slug":"sunday-blog-read-laura-stott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-laura-stott\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Laura Stott"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\""Blue<\/a>

“Blue City of Rajasthan,” oil painting by Katheryn Stott, sister of the poet Laura Stott, featured today in SUNDAY BLOG READ<\/p><\/div>\n

SUNDAY BLOG READ\u00a0<\/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 we are featuring poet and Weber State University English instructor\u00a0Laura Stott.\u00a0<\/b>15 Bytes is finally catching up with Laura who last October at the 15 Bytes Book Awards ceremony at Weller Book Works was upstaged by the pending arrival of her first baby . . . who, we are happy to report, has safely arrived. (She has work forthcoming in a poetry anthology on motherhood.) Laura\u00a0and her sister Katheryn Stott<\/a>, a painter who primarily works in oils, recently collaborated on a project in Pennsylvania. (See photo to the left.) Some of Katheryn’s work can be seen at\u00a0Ericson Gallery in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

Today Laura favors us with, first, two recently published poems published in Copper Nickel<\/em> and Sugar House Review<\/em>, respectively, and then selections from her collection \u00a0In the Museum of Coming and Going<\/em> (New Issues Poetry&Prose, 2014), a finalist for last year’s 15 Bytes Book Awards.<\/p>\n

So curl up with your favorite cup of Joe, and enjoy Laura Stott!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Monster<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spider webs by the backdoor funnel into
\na black cave, a silk and nocturnal universe
\nwhere a fanged creature waits
\nfor the moon\u2019s threaded children\u2014
\na moth, a marbled wasp\u2014
\nto crawl gently into the tangle
\nof reflection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mother spider wraps her eight legs lovingly
\naround all her young and whispers,
\nthis is the earth
\n<\/em>you are waiting to be born into\u2014
\n<\/em>dream of the wings you\u2019ll eat,
\nand kingdoms between roses.<\/p>\n

—Originally appeared in Copper Nickel<\/a>. Used with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Into the Blue<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the edge of a boat dock
\nthe blue nudes look far down a ladder\u2014
\nto where it hits surface glass.
\nThey can see rungs barely<\/p>\n

waver as their blue heads peer
\nover. Their own eyes
\nand the stars reflect in dark tide.
\nIt seems they will be climbing<\/p>\n

down into sky, one
\nblue nude after another.
\nIt couldn\u2019t feel anymore night.
\nSeals swim in their black
\nmilky way. Sky ripples
\nwith the color glaciers create.<\/p>\n

One moon bathed, barnacled
\nrung at a time, the blue nudes
\ndisappear, past mussels
\nin their blue shells,
\nkelp tangled in mid-air.
\nOne nude stops at the rim<\/p>\n

before arranging herself
\nover the side–torso twists,<\/p>\n

as hands cling. She looks back.
\nIt is this leaving that\u2019s beginning.<\/p>\n

Her hair blows in the wind.<\/p>\n

–Published in Sugar House Review<\/a>, used with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Waiting for Mammoths<\/strong><\/p>\n

On prime time,
\nthey interview the scientist
\nwho unearthed the great beast
\nand was up to her waist
\nin mammoth gore, up to her elbows
\nin frozen flesh. And you can see
\nthe excitement as she describes bile stones
\nin liver and they show a picture
\nof what looks like two large beetles,
\ntwo large prehistoric brachiopods.
\nAnd for a second, the camera
\nis on the reporter who looks as though
\nshe is about to throw up.
\nBut now, the scientist is telling us
\nabout the blood that oozed out,
\ndark liquid, the thrill, the possibility
\nof complete DNA preserved
\nso perfectly in this mother,
\nButtercup, they named the she-beast.
\nDidn\u2019t they promise
\nthey would give us a mammoth?
\nI\u2019ve been watching the headlines,
\nhillsides, roadside farms
\nfor a glimpse. There is the question,
\nshe says, if we should?
\n<\/em>But you can tell she wants to.
\nHow I long to see them
\ngrazing on the islands,
\ntheir long wooly hair
\nblowing in the breeze,
\ntheir tusks making way,
\nfilling the streets
\nour cities and suburbs
\nwith their saunter.
\nDeep in the bogs of time
\nif you passed them at sunset,
\nstartled by their stillness,
\nyou would take it as a sign.
\nIn the mist, in Siberia,
\nI imagine saber tigers and forests
\nof giant ferns, larger than our houses,
\nwhere we are nestled and waiting for clones\u2014
\nwe\u2019ll arise when we can\u2019t sleep,
\nstep into the night of streets
\nwhere we can almost
\nsee them staring back, hear
\ntheir nervous breath.
\nAnd we\u2019ll look up, searching
\nfor stars that may already
\nbe burned out.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

. . . from The Museum of Coming and Going<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The girl with no hands<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

stole a silver pear
\nfrom his majesty\u2019s orchard.
\nAnd the gardener saw it, believed
\nshe was an angel.
\nThe way she tilted her head back
\nand stretched her neck to the sky,
\nto eat. Her hair hung like silk curtains.
\nAnd in the moonlight,
\nhow could he not
\nfall in love with her?
\nHow could he betray this love
\nand tell this secret
\nwith the time to count each fruit?
\nEach destined
\nfor their numbering.
\nIt was a story the gardener couldn\u2019t
\nexplain, but had to account for.
\nSo, the gardener and the King waited
\nin hiding for the maiden
\nand when she appeared, hunger
\nwas in the girl\u2019s every step.
\nThey dared not speak,
\nbut watched her, as moths lightly played
\naround their faces.
\nAre you of this world?
\nIf I am a dream, then I am a dove.
\n<\/em>Be my queen, I will make you hands,
\nand the gardener wept, and the king
\nkept what was never his to keep.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

. . . from The Museum of Coming and Going<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Blue City of Rajasthan<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Such a quiet shade on the edge
\nof desert\u2014blue bicycle shop, blue
\nmarching band, blue lining
\nroyalty\u2019s garden, blue omelet shop.
\nBright green chilies
\nand lemons hung in blue doorways.
\nCows wander and wait with split hooves
\non blue streets.
\nThe old city is painted like it\u2019s not part of this world\u2014
\nlook at the sunset, the puzzle
\nof square, the blue houses in
\nhorizontal light.
\nOver Jodhpur the great fort of the maharaja,
\ncitadel of the sun,
\nstands on desert rock.
\nIn a dream
\nit shades the clock tower, bangle bracelets,
\npersistent children in bare feet,
\nand our breakfast
\nof saffron lassi and fruit.
\nLate at night, toward the train station,
\nthe city is emptied
\nand dark–no loud taxis, no traffic,
\nno one shouts names of spice.
\nIn the dark, no one sells posters of movie stars.
\nAnd in the blue, these cows,
\nsingular and white, sleepwalk
\nor dream in their holiness
\nand unrest, traveling the quiet,
\ntoward the end of Sardar Bazaar Road.<\/p>\n

Copyright, Laura Stott, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

\"Stott,<\/a>Laura Stott is the author of the book of poems, In the Museum of Coming and Going,<\/em> (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2014).\u00a0 She received her M.F.A. from Eastern Washington University. Her poems can be found in publications such as Copper Nickel<\/em>, Bellingham Review, Hayden\u2019s Ferry Review, Cutbank, Sugarhouse Review, Redactions, <\/em>and Rock and Sling<\/em>.\u00a0 Outside of poems, Laura spends as much time as possible with her family in their garden or the mountains of Utah. She is an Instructor of English at Weber State University.
\nPast featured writers in <\/em>15 Bytes\u2019 Sunday Blog Read:\u00a0Katharine 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>, andDanielle Beazer Dubrasky<\/a>,\u00a0Kevin Holdsworth<\/a>,\u00a0Jacqueline Osherow<\/a>, Stephen Carter<\/a>,\u00a0Alex Caldiero<\/a>,\u00a0Stephen Tuttle<\/a>, Raphael Dagold<\/a>, David Lee<\/a>,\u00a0Lisa Bickmore<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Kirstin Scott<\/a>,\u00a0Jesse Parent<\/a>\u00a0and Craig Dworkin<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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