Author Archives: Leslie Schultz

April 13, 2023 Spotlight on “A Coat,” by William Butler Yeats, Context for My Poem, “Green Coat,” and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KARLA SCHULTZ!

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William Butler Yeats, Poet and Statesman
Embroidered Coat (Photograph by Susan Jaret McKinstry)
A Coat

I made my song a coat 
Covered with embroideries 
Out of old mythologies 
From heel to throat; 
But the fools caught it, 
Wore it in the world’s eyes 
As though they’d wrought it. 
Song, let them take it
For there’s more enterprise 
In walking naked.

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
(First published in Poetry Magazine, 1914)

This small poem by W.B. Yeats is one of my favorites, another one that I have inadvertantly memorized. Once I realized the poem I wanted to write for today, in celebration of my sister, Karla’s birthday, then I realized that I wanted this song of a poem to kick things off! (Many thanks, Susan, for responding so quickly with a photograph of your own beautiful coat!)

Is there more enterprise in walking naked? Partial as I am to embroideries, I have pondered this long and long, and I am still not sure. I am, however, so grateful for this poem, encountered first in an informal study group with Doris Kammradt and Anne Johnson, in Madison, in that in-between time after college and before graduate school. Yeats’s poems teach me over and over the eloquence of the poetic enterprise.

Context for My Poem, “Green Coat”:

I am not skilled in the art of the Selfie–not by a long shot–but I wanted to give a sense of the wonderful gift my dear sister gave to me recently. It wasn’t for any special occasion but it was received during what seemed like an unending winter when I was always cold. Once I donned this magical coat, however, I felt warmed through and through. It cuts the wind. The inside of the pockets feel like velvet. I love the color. And when I wear it, I feel my sister’s love protecting me. So, for me, this green coat is both real and mythological and came, as magical things do, all unasked for.

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

April 12, 2023 Spotlight on “Triangles” by Pablo Neruda and Context for My Poem, “Attic Story”

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Pablo Neruda

The always-inspiring Chilean poet and statesman, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), wrote in Spanish but his work translates well into English. I have already shared (April 2022) on this blog my love of his poem, “Ode to My Socks,” and, indeed I think of that poem often when I wear the socks I knit for myself or when I am at work on a pair for someone I love. Today, I want to share a poem of his I discovered this morning as I thought about the shape of the triangle.

Triangles


Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.
I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It-s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.

Pablo Neruda

While I am unable to read the original, and I could not find a citation for the translator, I find this poem effective and evocative. (If you know more about this poem’s publication and/or translation history, please let me know, and I shall update this post.)

Context for My Poem, “Attic Story”:

Attic Window (Leslie Schultz)

Some of you might recall that last year there were lots of basement poems in April. Today it was this photograph I took in 2012 that inspired the poem, “Attic Story.”

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

Thai Pavillion, Olbrich Gardens, Madison, WI

April 11, 2023 Spotlight on “A Riddle” by Kelly Cherry and Context for My Poem, “What?”

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Photo by Meg Theno

Kelly Cherry (1940-2022) was one of my teachers at UW-Madison. We had not remained in touch directly, but I continue to read and admire her work. After writing my own poem for today, which takes the form of a riddle, I thought one of her short poems that I have read so often that, without even trying to, I have committed it to memory. I was saddened to learn this morning that Kelly Cherry died last year. (Her own website is kellycherrybooks.com.)

This favorite poem of mine is from her book, Relativity: A Point of View (Louisiana State University Press, 1977). 

A Riddle

My beauty is beyond compare
And easy reach. No man would dare
To comb my loosed effulgent hair.
I keep my distance but on rare
Occasions condescend to bear
Eight things that move a man to prayer
(Yet none a child), then disappear
In broad daylight beyond blue air.
Man's grasp still falls just short of there.

Answer

A comet. Coma means hair. According to a verse
published in the seventeenth century, the comet was
thought to bring "wind, famine, plague, death to kings,
earthquake, floods, and direful change."

Context for My Poem, “What?”:

The answer to my riddle is rather obvious, I think: thwarted ambition.

Lately rejections from editiors have flown in thick and fast, making me realize that the roots of my amibitions for my work, which I tend to think of as modest, must run deeper than I usually care to acknowledge. An iceberg structure, perhaps, with 9/10s below the level of consciousness? In any case, it helps to attempt to pin the emotion to the page in the form of a poem.

Now, to dust off my hands and move from black and white into the colorful, uplifting space of the garden!

Crossed Purpose (Leslie Schultz)
Approaching the Buddha (Leslie Schultz)

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

April 10, 2023 Spotlight on “My First Poems” and Context for My Poem, “A Story of Student Art”

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Everybody has to start somewhere. For me, with poetry, that was in Third Grade when I was eight years old. That was when, under the kindly encouragement of a beloved teacher, Mrs. Mumford, I went from being entranced by poetry’s music into trying to make my own poems.

After I wrote today’s poem, “A Story of Student Art,” I couldn’t think of anything that would make a suitable spotlight. And so, I thought I would share a bit of raggedy evidence of the blessing of having a really good teacher. (While I know these scraps are laughable, I don’t disown them because they remind me of how exciting it was to write each small set of lines, embellish each as best as I could, and put it in the basket for Mrs. Mumford to see. I can’t recall a single verbal comment that she offered but I know that I felt she beamed approval on me nonetheless. This gave me my first experience of an author reaching an audience. If I wanted to, I could draw a through line from “My First Poems” to this blog, embellished not by wildly erratic crayon lines but with the hasty snaps of an amateur photographer.

May we be tender with our early efforts!

Context for My Poem, “A Story of Student Art”:

This poem (Prose poem? Flash fiction?) evolved from a very vivid dream last night. After writing it, I decided to share this earliest work, above. I am still pondering this newest poem, thinking of how important teachers are to us but at the same time that they can never see what we see. I have been fortunate enough to know several wonderful teachers–as a student and now as treasured friends–and their work and steady kindness fills me with awe. Their encouragement, like the warmth of the spring sun, makes it possible allow the seeds within us germinate, grow, and flower, and eventually be shared. And I know that students, too, are teachers, even when they don’t know it.

There is something here, too, that speaks to the need to edit and revise. And that we can never tell it all, no matter how big the canvas, how epic the poem, how long the novel.

Nonetheless, it is important to allow the work to emerge fully before we get to work with the scissors. Here’s to allowing those planted seeds to flourish. Reaping will come in its own season.

Until tomorrow,

LESLIE

April 9, 2023 Spotlight on “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens and Context for My Poem, “Flower Power Pop Up Shop”

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Elsie Kachel Stevens, Wife and Muse to Wallace Stevens and Model for the Mercury Dime

Wallace Stevens’s magnificent poem, “Sunday Morning,” seemed just right for this Easter Sunday. It was first published in Poetry Magazine in 1915, in an abbreviated form at the request of founder and then-editor Harriet Monroe. Stevens later restored the cut stanzas in 1923 when he included it in his first book-length collection, Harmonium. The link above will take you to the entire poem. If you scroll down, you can also find a link to the abbreviated form in which this poem made its 1915 debut. The Poetry Foundation website also has a solid bio of Wallace Stevens and the texts of many others of his distinctive poems. In case you haven’t read his “Sunday Morning” in a while, here are the first five lines, the first sonorous sentence:

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

Here at 114 Winona Street, in April, we have the complacencies of flannel pajamas and the black-and-white freedom of the Maltipoo to accompany our late coffee and oranges on this Sunday morning. I am pondering the history, psychology, and semiotics of clothing under supremely well-written treatise by novelist Linda Grant called The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasure of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter, which is especially delicious to do in my current state of L.L. Bean-inflected dishabille. Soon, I will be dressed and in the kitchen to dress up in Easter finery the top of a key lime pie I made yesterday, a special dish for Tim and me to share in the garden later with a friend.

Life is good! Today, I can feel the renewal symbolized by Easter traditions.

Context for My Poem, “Flower Power Pop Up Shop”:

Happy Easter! LESLIE