Tag Archives: April Poems 2022

April 30, 2022: Spotlight on W.B. Yeats’s Poem, “The Wild Swans at Coole”; Background on My Poem, “Swan Song”

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Image by Andreas Glöckner from Pixabay

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
Image by panimo from Pixabay

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.

Image by Andreas Senftleben from Pixabay
Image by romavor from Pixabay

Thank you for joining me on this April journey. Here’s to seeing new poems all year long!

LESLIE

(Photo: Leslie Schultz)

April 28, 2022: Spotlight on Adrienne Rich’s Poem, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”; Background on My Poem “Looking”

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Tiger, Predator, Fur, Dangerous, Big Cat, Animal World
(photo: Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay; used by permission)
Adrienne Rich as a Young Poet

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) is a poet who loomed large for me in college. Her poem about Emily Dickinson, “I am in Danger–Sir–” from her eighth collection of poetry, Diving into the Wreck (1973) helped me to understand the allusive half-rhymes of Dickinson as well as the strictures of her poetic and personal lives. Her earlier poem for poet Denise Levertov, “The Roofwalker,” (1961) helped me understand how it might feel to be a woman who published poetry, “…exposed, larger than life,/ and due to break my neck….”

Despite my admiration for her later work and life, the collection of hers that I keep coming back to is her first one. A Change of World (Yale University Press, 1951) was selected to receive the Yale Younger Poets Prize by W.H. Auden when Rich was in her senior year at Radcliffe College. I find the work astonishing seventy years later, and astonishingly mature for a young woman of twenty-two. Here is one of my perennial favorites:

Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Amur Tiger, Tiger, Predator, Hunter, Nature, Animal
(Photo: TheOtherKev/Pixabay; used by permission)

Background for My Poem, “Looking”:

I have been looking at old family photos this past couple of weeks, and some memories have come back with new clarity. I had forgotten about the incident described in the poem–looking through binoculars at an ocean-going ship as a child, and the startlement of seeing a stranger looking back at me. A more extroverted child might have been thrilled!

(Photo: Pixabay: Used by permission)

Happy Looking! Happy Seeing! LESLIE

April 26, 2022: Spotlight on Kay Ryan’s Poem, “Cloud”; Background on My Poem, “Renouncing Kleos”

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Kay Ryan has become one of my very favorite poets in the past few years. I go back and back again to her work. Today, I thought of her poem, “Cloud,” as a perfect example of ephemera.

Background to My Poem, “Renouncing Kleos”:

I first encountered the Greek word, “kleos,” when Julia and I studied Homer’s epics during our homeschooling days. Today, with the sky granite grey, it came back to me, and I thought about how humans want to create something that outlasts themselves but that ultimately seems foolish–and maybe particpating imaginatively in the ephemeral nature of things is a better way toward wisdom. And I wonder why it can be so difficult for humans to stay anchored in the present moment.

Still later, I thought how sidewalk pavers are a nice half-way place between making one’s mark in a permanent way and living in the present moment totally. And they are mostly kleos-free, since no name is attached.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! LESLIE

April 25, 2022: Spotlight on Poem #260 by Emily Dickinson; Background for My Poem “The Quest”

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I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(Photo Collage by Karla Schultz; Used by Permission)

After I wrote today’s poem, “The Quest,” about names, I realized that there was only one poem to spotlight today–this classic by Dickinson. It is one that I have memorized, that I repeat aloud irritatingly often, and in which I was see and hear something new each time.

Background for My Poem “The Quest”:

This week, I talked with a friend who needed to adjust her middle name legally on some documents, so that got me thinking about names and name changes. Then, this morning, I was reading Chapter Ten: “Our Real Names” from one of my go-to books on the craft of poetry (Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge) and a memory from childhood resurfaced.

I rather think I might eventually write a series of poems about dream names, pen names, nick names, secret names, unspoken names, the names of characters, children, and pets, and place names.

Naming is such a rich topic. Perhaps the naming instinct is what gave rise to language itself? Is a name something we are given or something we make?

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! Happy Leaping! LESLIE

April 24, 2022: Spotlight on a Poem from My First Year of April Poems (2016), “A Holey Prayer Rug”; and Background on My New Poem “Athleisure”

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Today, I have been thinking about physical activity and how glad I am just to be ambulatory. Here is a photo Karla took of me at Stone Mountain in Georgia, and below a poem I wrote and published here on April 6, 2016, my first year of indulging in the vigorous activity of the April poems. 
A Holey Prayer Rug

It’s when I wonder where I’m at
That I unfurl my yoga mat.

Although it’s tattered like a tarp, it
Has become my magic carpet.

On it I fly that sense of doom
That seeks me daily in my room;

No matter muscles—ached and pained—
My inner poise can be regained.

No matter where my thoughts have flown
I chant, become one perfect tone.

Leslie Schultz

My yoga mat used to be unfurled regularly in public but it is now a very private retreat.

Background on My Poem “Athleisure”:

This morning, I was musing about the word constructed not too long ago by marketing guru- trend analzyerTypes: “athleisure.” It is very true that as a society we are both living longer and are “aging” more actively as a whole. I have many friends who have a couple decades on me and who are far more physically fit than I ever have been or probably ever will be. And yet, the recent combination for me of continued pandemic restrictions and a (now-healing, but still compromising my walking) pinched nerve have, over the past year have made me see the value of prioritizing comfort while still asking for some measure of style. The word “athleisure” makes me giggle but the concept is, I think, a sound one and here to stay.

Days of Yesteryear, Back When I Wore Yoga Togs in Public