Marilyn Bushman-Carlton, poet and author, was born in Lehi, Utah on November 18, 1945. She received a BA from the University of Utah (as a mother of five) in 1989. She currently lives in Draper, Utah.
She has published three poetry books: on keeping things small (Signature Books, 1995); Cheat Grass, (1999), which won the Pearle M. Olsen Book Publication/USPS Poet of the Year award; and Her Side of It, (Signature Books, 2010), winner of the Association of Mormon Letters Poetry Award (2010). A chapbook version of Her Side of It was a finalist in the Comstock Review’s 2005 Jess Bryce Niles Chapbook competition. She has also authored a book of children’s poems, Pulchritudinous and Other Ways to Say Beautiful, for her sixteen grandchildren, (Lulu Press, 2015).
Her prose includes a biography, Worthy: A Young Woman from a Background of Poverty and Abuse Falls Prey to a Polygamous Cult (Lulu Press, 2016), a finalist for the 11th Annual Indie Excellence Award.
Other awards include a prize (1997) and a grant (1996) from the Utah Arts Council, for whom she was an Artist-in-Residence, traveling throughout Utah to teach poetry in elementary, middle, and senior high schools (1996-2012); and awards for individual poems from the Comstock Review, the Ledge, The Sow’s Ear, BYU Studies; Utah State and National Poetry Societies, Red Butte Gardens, UTA Poetry on the Bus, and others.
Individual poems appear in Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry; Fire in the Pasture; Twenty-First Century Mormon Poets; Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women: SLCC Anthology (2018 and 2020); Utah Sings (Vols. 7, 8, & 9); and other anthologies.
A poem, “Voluntary Poverty,” was set to music and performed at Brigham Young University in the program, “Discoveries, Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women" (March 2004) and at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association (2004).
Works
Barbed Wire and Cardinals
Barbed Wire and Cardinals
“You can’t lead me down that road,”
-Taylor Swift
Until now, there were endings,
always happy, or at least satisfying, ones:
the cruel were punished,
white knights rushed in,
the police came,
someone was resuscitated.
Since discovering Stella and the Ku Klux Klan,
Louie Zamperini,
Ralph, Piggy, and Jack on a savage island,
and that the name of your elementary school
recognizes a Nazi camp survivor,
your sun has tumbled from heaven,
lost its halo in the fall,
and turned from gold to blood.
Your narrow shoulders balance a hammered mass.
Thieves have stolen petals from the daisies
and you can’t think how to put them back.
But stars, Amelia, can’t shine without darkness.
There will always be barbed wire,
but also picket fences.
There are sewers and rats, yes,
but cardinals come on the bleakest winter days.
Intensely red, they
hang their beauty out on spongy-white branches.
During the sunny days of late winter,
they trill uncomplicated lyrics:
cheer, cheer, cheer they say,
and the world turns small again,
and becomes possible.
-from Pulchritudinous and Other Ways to Say Beautiful
on keeping things small
on keeping things small
though I know
planting a terrarium
has something to do
with suppression I allow
myself to wallow
to delight in the sun
of my power to create
build permit life
fear necessitates
deliberate placement
of each similar
shade-tolerant two-inch
sprig of green
(one red for variety)
in this carefully planned
environment: a pyramid
of gravel charcoal treated
soil a little water
it takes work
to make plants think they thrive
to make them lace and perk
a consistent sprinkling
to hide telltale wilting
overachievers must be pruned
anxious leafing
reduced to colorspots
small enough to position
reposition if necessary
this is no place for lush plants
whose large leaves cast shadows
even now brazen greens
press against containment
-from on keeping things small, Signature Books, 1995
Let Little Girls Sing
Let Little Girls Sing
“How far that little candle throws
its beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world.”
— Portia, The Merchant of Venice
Let little birds do what they do.
Let the rain of little girls’ voices
flood alleys and cracks.
Let their elfish tunes—
their excited diminutive chatter,
like tiny bursts of confetti—flutter.
Let, oh let,
their two-and-a-half-year-old voices
purr. And isn’t this the way
their stray pale hairs would sound
if hairs could sing?
Granddaughters chirp on the go—
circling snow
princesses, blossoms popping,
confectioners’ teaspoons
spilling.
Once in Italy,
in a clearing in the Dolomites,
their grandfather and I came upon the tiniest chapel.
Amelia and Elly could be the choir,
dressed to soft bare feet
in white …
--published in Her Side Of It, Signature Books, 2010.
Judas
Judas
“Everyone, well or ill . . . imagines a boundary of suffering . . . beyond which, she or he is certain life will no longer be worth living . . . [A]t various times, I could not possibly do without long walks on the beach
or rambles through the woods; use a cane, a brace, a wheelchair; stop teaching; give up driving; let someone else put on or take off my underwear. [But o]ne at a time, with the encouragement of others, I have taken each of these . . . steps . . . When I reach the wall, I think I’ll know.”
-Nancy Mairs, Waist High in the World
Surviving my mother by twelve years, my father
became my perfect friend,
having evolved from the anxious and overly-protective
father I’d known as a teenager.
I stopped by regularly, alone, both going and coming,
during monthly drives to southern Utah
where I escaped for quiet to write.
I developed a need to sit beside him.
Mostly, he listened
as I handed him my heart, giving it wholly to him.
He handled it carefully like a secret.
He could see inside the singular heart of his second child,
the one most like him—headstrong, quietly confident—
even as I poured out questions, even disagreements,
about the faith that was his life,
and second nature.
Occasionally, about a certain grievance, he asked why
I felt the way I did and listened to my explanation,
nodding, yes, he could see that.
He stayed deliberately on my side.
His mind was sound, his body agile, his heart
not only good, but strong. Then at 97
he swallowed Tums until they found the cancer.
Some of my siblings and I were with him
when the specialist told him what to expect, giving him
a few to several months.
He sat quietly
while everyone cheered him on—
he’d be reunited with his wife, our mother. His parents.
He lived alone, stubbornly took care of himself,
sometimes saying he was not ready yet. Life
was still enjoyable.
Very near the end as the two of us sat close—
his vision and hearing nearly gone—
and the distance between us was a whisper,
he confessed he wished he’d been given a choice
for treatment. That day in the specialist’s office.
I felt like Judas.
-published in Dialogue, Summer 2009
Bibliography
- Pulchritudinous and Other Ways to Say Beautiful (Lulu Press, 2015)
- Her Side of It (Signature Books, 2010)
- Cheat Grass (Utah State Poetry Society, 1999)
- on keeping things small (Signature Books, 1995)
- Worthy: A Young Woman from a Background of Poverty and Abuse Falls Prey to a Polygamous Cult (Lulu Press, 2016)
