green language – Page 2 – Wilderness Interface Zone

Goat Paths by Patricia Karamesines

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We are the Day Society:

See how we skirt surefooted as goats

the Crevasse of Desire.

God is in the well-placed step that bears us above Death,

while Beauty weeps for us beyond the goat paths.

By day, the way is clear, so complete,

the ground floor and ceiling blue.

We see where we are and name it alone and only.

On our tongue, world settles into a few words—

unanswered, unanswerable shouting.

Then sunset’s splinters—orange, mauve—

fade to night’s raw transparency

and the first call of a star.

Perfect, calling silence, star following star

like deer stepping from shadow or heavy forest

into the dark’s open, stream-curled meadows.

Now we’re in sterner metaphor,

the embrace of the abyss,

brought by goat paths

to the brink of wilderness.

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Patricia Karamesines has won numerous awards for her poetry, essays, and fiction, including awards from the University of Arizona, the Utah Arts Council, and the Utah Wilderness Association. She is the author of The Pictograph Murders (Signature Books 2004), an award-winning mystery novel set in the Four Corners area. Her poetry appears in the anthology Fire in the Pasture (Peculiar Pages 2011). She writes for the Mormon arts and culture blog A Motley Vision and runs the nature writing blog Wilderness Interface Zone that advocates for the “greening of human language”. She has taught English classes at USU-Eastern off and on since 2006 and now tutors English students for the NASNTI Grant program–a job she dearly loves. She lives with her husband and three children a stone’s throw from beleaguered Recapture Canyon, has put in plenty of foot-time in the canyon, and is currently completing a work of creative nonfiction about her strange and wonderful experiences there.

Some Words by Dayna Patterson

Divorced from their meanings,

some words have lovely sound.

Poo,

with its soft plosive puh,

the same oo as in moon,

a word poets are fond of.

Chlamydia

could be a beautiful vine

with violet petals unfurling

around the kitchen bay window.

Balaclava

might refer to the delicate,

pale collar bones

of a water nymph.

Bergen-Belsen

could be generic for sanctuary,

a garden with no corpse flowers,

no odor of decay.

Bashar Hafez al-Assad

could be the name of a saint,

Saint of the underdog, of lost

buttons, of broken crockery.

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Dayna Patterson is Poetry Editor at Psaltery & Lyre. For more, go here.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons by Doronenko, 2012, of an abandoned Jewish Cemetery in Trstin.

Wilderness Interface Zone is going

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ENVIRON: To encircle; surround [Middle English envirounen, from Old French environner, from environ, round about: en-, in + viron, circle (from virer, to turn; see VEER. ENVIRONMENT: 1. The circumstances or conditions that surround one; surroundings. 2. The totality of circumstances surrounding an organism or group of organisms, especially: a. The combination of external physical conditions that affect and influence the growth, development, and survival of an organism. b. The complex of social and cultural conditions affecting the nature of an individual or community (American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition, 2000). ENVIRONMENT: 1. a surrounding or being surrounded. 2. something that surrounds; surroundings. 3. all the conditions, circumstances, and influences surrounding, and affecting the development of, an organism or group of organisms: often contrasted with heredity (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Deluxe Second Edition, 1983).

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Today WIZ launches a project to advocate for the bettering of the environment in a new and perhaps radical way. Continue reading “Wilderness Interface Zone is going”

Vote for your favorite 2011 Spring Poetry Runoff poems

Thanks to a gorgeous stream of entries, WIZ’s 2011 Spring Poetry Runoff Celebration ran even deeper into the season than did last year’s. And indeed, this year’s Runoff has been an inspiring show of green and fertile language, above and beyond what I had hoped. In fact, I’ve been wowed, not just by the craftsmanship of the poems that came in but also by the wide range of styles. Many thanks to those who joined the dance in whatever way they did!

Now, Dear WIZ Readers and Poets Participating in the Contest, it’s time to have a little more fun and play at being poetry judges for the next six days–part of the informal nature of this contest. But rather than limit each judge (that’s you) to just one vote, we’re asking each voter to choose her or his 3 favorite poems of the 25 contest-eligible entries. The poll opens today and runs until 10:00 p.m. (Utah time) Saturday, May 14.

While readers and participants choose the winner(s) of the Spring Poetry Runoff Contest Popular Vote Award, WIZ admin will be choosing the winner of the Spring Poetry Runoff Admin Award. Winners of both awards will be announced in a post on or shortly after Monday, May 16 and will receive their choices of Mark Bennion’s Psalm and Selah: A Poetic Journey Through The Book Of Mormon (Bentley Enterprises 2009), A Metaphorical God: Poems (Persea 2008) by Kimberly Johnson, or The Clearing (Texas Tech University Press 2007) by Philip White.

Rules for voting:

1. Each voter should select his or her 3 favorite poems of the 25 eligible.
2. Each voter can vote only one time–no multiple-vote-ballot-box-stuffing shenanigans, please.
3. Voters are encouraged to read every poem before voting. Click here to read all of the eligible poems. Please note: Because there are 25 poems total, you’ll need to click on €œPrevious Entries € twice in order to read them all. The full text of longer poems won’t display on the list pages, so right clicking and opening each poem in a new tab or window is a good approach.
4. Participating poets and WIZ readers may encourage friends and family members to read and vote.
5. All participating poets are encouraged to vote whether their poems were published in the contest category or in the non-contest category.

Instructions for voting:

Click on the small square box next to the name of the poem that you wish to choose. A green or black check mark will appear in that box. If you accidentally check mark the wrong box or change your mind, simply click on the box again and the check mark will disappear. After you have check-marked your 3 favorite poems (you will see 3 check marks on the page), click on the €œVote € box at the bottom of the page. Clicking on that box will end your voting session, so be sure you’ve finished voting before you click €œVote. € To see the tally of votes so far, click €œView Results. €

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