Postcard: May Day, 2022
Author Archives: Leslie Schultz
Newsflash! My Sonnet, “Wave of Departure,” is Included in the Spring 2022 Issue of THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A JOURNAL OF FORMAL POETRY
The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry has just published Volume 16, Issue 1. Publishing fine formal poetry since 2007, this journal is a font of adept and interesting poems. Issues are published online, and they offer interested readers an easily accessible archive, chronologically arranged.
I am so pleased that they have included a sonnet, “Wave of Departure,” inspired by the ginkgo tree Tim and I planted almost twenty-three years ago in honor of Julia’s birth. The images below are of this tree.
For all you formalist poets out there, this lovely journal puts out three issues a year. Submission Guidelines are clear and specific, and submission periods are as follows:
Fall Submission Period: August 15th – October 15th
Spring Submission Period: January 15th – March 15th
Summer Submission Period: April 1st- June 15th
I am sure you will enjoy looking at the current issue. Poems selected have been collected under the themes of “Safe Spaces,” “Satires,” and “Closures.”
Happy Reading! LESLIE
Postcards from Red Wing: Highlights from the 2022 Poet-Artist Collaboration Event on April 29
The 21st annual Poet-Artist Collaboration event organized by Red Wing Arts last night was a highlight of National Poetry Month! It was energizing and at times mesmerizing to see art works inspired by poems, and to hear from other poets and from the visual artists who had undertaken to interpret selected poems into three-dimensional forms. The two-part evening in Red Wing, Minnesota, at the Deport Gallery and then at the St. James Hotel, also offered the chance for informal conversations. A full list of all the talented participants can be found HERE. After two years of quarantine, it was wonderful to see so many welcome and familiar faces from Northfield and Winona, and to make some new acquaintances. And I was very pleased to be able to read my sonnet, “Echo from Hug Point,” to such a receptive crowd. (The link takes you to Mezzo Cammin Journal, where the poem was first published; my reading of the poem was also aired on the public radio program, Wordish, and included in my third collection, Concertina.
Below are a few images of the site and the evening. The grey, rainy day was leant real sparkle for a few hours. (A special thank-you to Tim, Julia, and Susan who came with me to share this special evening!)
April 30, 2022: Spotlight on W.B. Yeats’s Poem, “The Wild Swans at Coole”; Background on My Poem, “Swan Song”
I didn’t encounter William Butler Yeats‘s poetry until the year after I was graduated from university. At first, I didn’t like it. Decades on, however, I cannot imagine my life without his work and without his example of steady workmanship despite the persistent ups of downs of personal and communal life. Like some of the other poems I have shared this month, this poem is one that I spent time committing to memory.
The Wild Swans at Coole The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away? William Butler Yeats
In searching out a photo of Irish swans, I couldn’t resist sharing the image above that I stumbled upon.
Background on My Poem, “Swan Song”:
I know that Yeats has set the bar very high–stratospherically high–in not one but two magnificent poems deploying the force of swan imagery and mythology. (The autumnal elegaic one above, in all its calm and stately melancholy, contrasts markedly with his sonnet “Leda and the Swan.”) Nonetheless, there is always room closer to earth for another swan poem. This very wet spring, Tim, Julia, and I have seen a surprising number of swans along the Interstate resting on the ephemeral ponds created by snow melt and rain. My poem for today reflects these sightings.
Thank you for joining me on this April journey. Here’s to seeing new poems all year long!
LESLIE
April 29, 2022: Spotlight on Gerard Manly Hopkins’s Poem, “Spring and Fall”; Background on My Poem, “Harvesting Enshrined Scraps”
Spring and Fall
to a young child
Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
This wise and well known poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins is one I have committed to memory. One of the advantages of growing older for me has not been so much to be colder in the face of triggers for sorrow than to understand them better and to allow them to arise and subside in their season. I don’t feel innured to life’s pain so much as being better fitted to endure it and even sometimes learn from it. What I really love about this poem is its music. Who else could have crafted the line “though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie…”?
Background on My Poem, “Harvesting Enshrined Scraps”:
This month has been a time of looking through family photographs and deciding which to keep and which to release. It is not an easy process for most of us–assigning personal value to paper that carries no intrinsic value. Discoveries range from the delightful to the disconcerting. Perhaps the most valuable aspect for me is recognizing that everything (animate and inanimate) has a lifespan, and with periodic reviews it gets easier for me to recognize this and to act accordingly to release what is no longer alive with meaning for me. A form of telling time unavailable to the young, perhaps.
Wishing you a happy day, and a happy season! LESLIE