David Lee has published over two dozen books and his awards include the Western States Book Award, Mountain and Plains States Booksellers Award, Elkhorn Poetry Prize and Utah Book Awards. He was named the First Poet Laureate of Utah and held that position for a six-year term. In 2001 he was Finalist-runner-up for the position of United States Poet Laureate. He has received multiple fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. He has received multiple nominations for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.
Lee held classes at Southern Utah University for thirty two years and chaired the Department of Language, Literature, and Humanities for twenty five of those years. He received every teaching award given by the university, including being named Professor of the Year on three separate occasions. He is an Emeritus Professor of English at that institution. He was the fifth academic in Utah to be named a Lifetime Fellow by the Utah Council of Arts and Sciences and received the Utah Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in both the Arts and Humanities.
Retired, Lee splits his time between Boulder, Utah; Mesquite, Nevada; Silver City, Nevada; Seaside, Oregon; the Cascade River, Washington; and Benalmadena, Espana. His most recent book is Mine Tailings published by 5 Sisters Press. He reads, scribbles and wanders available graveled roads and trails, all at about the same rate and pace.
Works
Globe Mallow
Globe Mallow
Redux: Houserock Valley
Turn out right there Jan said
and I said okay and
pulled off the highway
and Jan got out with her camera
started taking pictures
Globe Mallow spread thigh high
across the red desert
thick as Moses’ sea
tangled with Pharaoh’s chariots
then another car pulled off
and another then one more
all of us like children
in a field of strawberries
stretching to the edge of horizon
lapping over into otherworld
and then the ’84 Ford
doors flung open
driver bolting for a ditch
and a long bleeding of the lizard
passenger sauntering toward us
eyes agape, neck turning
Whatchyall looking for
is it some dead bodies out heah?
Jan gestured toward the wild flowers
turned back to pleasure
he turned to me
What all yall taking them pictures of?
I said Globe Mallow
we’ve never seen such profusion
Seen such of a what?
The flowers I said
What’d you say they was?
Globe Mallow
Like marsh mellers? He said
and I Exactly
they are in bloom like we’ve
Never seen before
That where marsh mellers come from?
and I, too, thought hard for us all,
My only swerving
and said: Yes
they’re in full bloom
and this fall they will have fruit
spread across this field
like high caprock Texas cotton on a rain year
Is it worth any much? He said
And I said Yes, so I’ve heard
a four ounce bag in a grocery store
goes for two dollars I’ve been told
and a tow sack full might hold
what? one hundred pounds? at four
two dollar sacks to the pound
and he said Jesust Christ
can you pick it?
and I said On the outside
of the fence, inside is Indian land
only the Navajo can harvest there
that’s how they get all those new pickups
this side of the fence is BLM
and belongs to the American public
You wouldn’t be shitting me now?
and I said No sir
I am a retired Professor of English
and I have neither patience
nor respect for hyperbolic felicity
that being beneath my dignity
he said You swear to God?
and I said Yessir
I will swear to whatever god you believe in
that that’s exactly what I said
Jan was staring at me with her look
I shrugged in the sunlight
hoping I was bursting into blossom
Looks like it’s going to be
one hell of a crop this year
but he had already turned
striding toward his car
with purpose and enthusiasm
LeRoy he yelled Whar you at?
Get back to the car
I got me something to tell you
Hurry up goddammit
a rip-snorter for Bill and Dorothy
Te amo
Graham Cracker
Graham Cracker
“From the southern border I hear a giant sucking sound… .”
Ross Perot
“This crowd are a bunch of communists…they hate our own country.”
Lindsey Graham, FOX News
The sudden clarification
and immediate Southern
pronounceration acceptance
of the now ordained proper noun
Sucophant
about as smooth
and salient
a move
as passing extra crunchy
Carolina peanut butter
September Tableau with Seagulls
September Tableau with Seagulls
(after reading the 24th chapter of the Book of Luke and setting out for a late Sunday afternoon saunter)
Air thick like a river
undulating beneath a flotilla
of aspen rafts:
an Apostle’s quorum wherein
seagulls curse and scream obscenities
copper throated caws
over an accidentally dropped Dooger’s Take Home carton
accusations of theft and infidelity
beggary, hoarse property rights
and taking count of priority presence
on the flight to a presupposed supper at Emmaus
bickersquawk Mine Mine Mine
a literal shrieking of the sacred name Yahawev
then the sudden shock of white wingflash
into an actual godsoar ascension
grace filled turn and Bunyanesque sinner aboundance
into what for lack of a better term
we call eternity
all of us now homeward
and hopefully upward bound
Poetry
- Shadow Weaver, Brooding Heron Press, 1978
- The Porcine Legacy, Copper Canyon Press, 1979
- Driving and Drinking, Copper Canyon Press, 1982
- The Porcine Canticles, Copper Canyon Press, 1984
- Day’s Work, Copper Canyon Press, 1990
- Paragonah Canyon, Autumn, Brooding Heron Press, 1990
- My Town, Copper Canyon Press, 1995
- Covenants (with William Kloefkorn), Spoon River Poetry Press,1996
- Wayburne Pig, Brooding Heron Press, 1997
- The Fish, Wood Works Press, 1997
- A Legacy of Shadows: Selected Poems, Copper Canyon Press, 1999
- News From Down to the Café, New Poems, Copper Canyon Press, 1999
- The Twenty one Gun Salute, Grey Spider Press, 1999
- Incident at Thompson Slough, Wood Works Press, 2002
- So Quietly the Earth, Copper Canyon Press, 2004
- Stone Wind Water, Black Rock Press, 2010
- In a House Made of Time (with William Kloefkorn), Logan House Press, 2010
- Texas Wild Flowers, Wood Works Press, 2011
- Moments of Delicate Balance (with William Kloefkorn), Wings Press, 2011
- Last Call, Wings Press, 2014
- Bluebonnets, Firewheels, and Brown-Eyed Susans: New and Used Poems, Wings Press, 2017
- Mine Tailings, 5 Sisters Press, 2019
- The Allegory of Perfection, a Triptych, Sugar House Press, 2019
