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A Kick on the Apogee – by a Rocket Kid

Thinking about being a rocket kid today, growing up in the mushroom shadow of the Cold War and with my father, the bipolar rocket scientist. He used to joke that he blew up rockets for a living. He blew up families, too. But he also created some fantastic art, taught me how to fish and how to be creative, and I still miss the pain-in-the-family factor of his explosive, active, restless, engaging, irritating, fascinating personality.…

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The Land of Totuaba

I’m excited that my memoir essay of camping in Baja California with my bipolar rocket scientist father and family is now published online at Halfway Down the Stairs. This issue of the journal has a rich selection of poetry and prose, and I’m honored to have had my story selected. “The Land of Totuaba” is an excerpt from my memoir of an unusual childhood with a father who blew up rockets for a living and…

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Telecommunications and my dad

Digging back into the old memoir, Rocket Lessons (forthcoming from who-knows-where, who-knows-when) to rehab some of the chapters as short essays to submit here and there, I discovered one about my father’s biggest project, the launch of the world’s first telecommunications satellite, Relay I. As it turned out, it was by five months the world’s second telecommunications satellite, but as my father always liked to point out, “It’s still up there and Telstar died in…

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Review of Gods of Water and Air + four poems up at Pirene’s Fountain!

I’m thrilled to have my new book, Gods of Water and Air, reviewed at Pirene’s Fountain — and in glowing terms! — by publisher/editor/poet Ami Kaye. Ami is the author of What Hands Can Hold and other books. I love the way she summed up my book: “Dacus gives us poetry she has plucked from the fire of her imagination and heart, imparting warmth and sustenance to its readers, reminding us what is sacred in…

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