Siberian scilla are sprouting in the back gardens.
Robins are tentatively returning. Another sign of early spring?
National Poetry Month is celebrated each April.
Beginning in 2016, I have taken up the challenge to write a new poem
each day in April and share it by publishing it here. This year--
foolishly, perhaps, but enthusiastically, certainly--I take
up the challenge for the fourth consecutive year.
I hope a few will speak to you! LESLIE
Today, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, fine poet, fearless publisher of Alan Ginsburg’s Beat classic, “Howl,” and co-founder of San Francisco’s famed City Lights Bookstore turns 100 years old. Happy Birthday!!
I took this image (in the point-and-shoot and film camera days) from the doorway of City Lights on a pilgrimage and pleasure tour Tim and I made there in 1997. Today, I am just delighted to have read this poem by Ferlinghetti on Poem-A-Day, “The Changing Light,” written when he was eighty years old. I also enjoyed the voice clip of him reading this poem of love of place–a place he and others turned into a mecca of inclusivity and poetry.
I hope your day combines whimsy and lasting value in your own particular way–even if grey skies temporarily flatten you (as they often do me.)
On March 1, 2019, despite a heavy snowfall, thirty-five people gathered at Content Bookstore in Northfield, Minnesota for a reading centered on themes of “Reliance and Sustainability,” with special emphasis on climate change.
Hosted by Northfield Poet Laureate Rob Hardy, the evening dovetailed with City of Northfield emphasis on sustainability. Work was selected through blind-judging process. The program (poetry and prose) included work by Northfield writers Orick Petersen, Christine Kallman, Leslie Schultz, Becky Boling, Linne Jenson, D.E. Green, Steve McGown, Bruce Anderson, and Ricki Kolbl Nelson.
If you weren’t able to attend–or, like me, if you were there and would like read the work you enjoyed hearing–here is a link to the e-zine created by Rob Hardy.
Meanwhile, in this week when curtain walls of icicles have fallen all around the region, here are a few before- and after-photos from inside our house!
LESLIE
