Author Archives: Leslie Schultz

Writers Night E-Zine for March 1, 2019

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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

News Flash! MEZZO CAMMIN Publishes Two of My Poems, “Encased in Amber” and “A View from Vista Drive”

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Nothing takes my mind off looming cabin fever like reading surprising new work, and so in this chilled time of the year I am especially grateful for something new to capture my attention. If you, too, feel this way, here is some good news–

The new issue of Mezzo Cammin: An Online Journal of Formalist Poetry by Women has been published. As usual, it is full of work that inspires me with its deftness and insight. In this issue, I especially enjoyed Barbara Crooker’s paean to some of the currently eclipsed arts that take up much of my time–baking, soup-making, working with yarns–called “Obsolence.”

Two of my own poems, a sonnet and a set of tercets, can also be found here. Both are drawn from an as-yet-unfinished collection of poems about mothers and daughters.

Happy reading! Leslie

“Blizzard,” A New Poem By Emilio DeGrazia

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Centennial Fountain (1967) by Ray Jacobson at Carleton College

One of the great things about having poet friends is that sometimes you get to see brand new poems as they are created. These surprises are especially welcome during the long winter months, when the blue shadows weigh heavily, if beautifully, on us. Here in Minnesota, we have been experiencing record-breaking snows. In February, alone, we have already been gifted with more than 30 inches of new snow, and the month is not quite complete.

Given this, you can imagine my delight when yesterday I received a newly drafted poem, via the miracle of email, from Emilio DeGrazia, a poet friend from Winona, Minnesota who wrested something beautiful from the double white blankness of the fresh page and the fresh drifts of snow. He noted:

“Here’s one I wrote after look out the window today, a smallish thing.”

And then he agreed that I could share it with you.  

BLIZZARD
 
The snowstorm drives ghost sails
Over the winter of our discontent.
Drifts huddle in ditches
And find refuge against walls.
Nothing is written on the vast page
Of deep snow in the fields.
White, having its way, dominates,
Provides a clean coverup.
 
We curl in to keep warm
And allow our hearts to feast
On the contours of cold purity,
The resurrection of beauty and depth
And burial of the trivial.

Emilio DeGrazia

Thank you, Emilio! Leslie