Many thanks to those readers who took the time to wrestle with my question about whose (fictional) poetic voice shone through the hatchling poems for fictive characters that I shared on April 6. I truly appreciate your help–you know who you are!

It helped me to get your thoughtful responses. One such response, from a very accomplished writer of fiction, I will share here, since she shared it publically in the Comments Field:

“The age of a poet is always young. The place from which a poet creates can exist in all ages. I can’t discern the work of an elderly artist of any genre except maybe in skill and sophistication, both of which I see and read here. I wouldn’t have said “This is Leslie Schultz’s work” if you hadn’t told me it was, but knowing, I recognize your mind and heart and intellect in the compact poems packed with internal rhyme and evocative imagery. Which isn’t to say you can’t/didn’t write in other voices. If we can create characters, we can think and write and feel in their experiences, however close to or foreign from our own (if anything is).” Jan Newman

As to the fictive authorship of the six shared poems?

“Study of Cloud Rapture from the Shore” Older Poet

“Jenny Stubtoe” Younger Poet

“Candlelight at Point Reyes” Older Poet

“My First Shasta Soda” Younger Poet

“The Geode” Younger Poet

“White Egret, Green Field” Older Poet

Wishing you clear directions for your own day’s journey, wherever and however you are headed–LESLIE