Tag Archives: April Poems 2022

April 14, 2022: Spotlight on Poet Ron Padgett and His Collection, HOW TO BE PERFECT; Background on My Poem, “Sunshine”

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Ron Padgett‘s book of poems, How to Be Perfect, (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2008) has a permanent place on my shelf. I am far from perfect, and so I do not have any of his other celebrated works, though I am curious about them, especially his collaboration with artist Jason Novak, published by Coffee House Press in 2016, called How to Be Perfect: An Illustrated Guide, and Oklahoma Tough: My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootleggers (University of Oklahoma, 2003).

The pleasures of How to Be Perfect, as ironic a title as Johnathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” are many. Consider the titles of such short works as “Very Post-Impressionism” and “Charlie Chan Wins Again” and “Whiz Bang” and “Rinso.” If you are like me, you immediately want to turn from the table of contents and dive into the poem itself. Many of the longer works, including “The Absolutely Huge and Incredible Injustice in the World” are witty and arresting and deadly serious protests all at once, works that question the ability of humans to wake up and save themselves and the planet. Yet Padgett never gives in to ease despair, and the verbose advice dropping of Polonius. Indeed, the title poem, a litany of short bits of advice strung across several pages, is laugh-out-loud funny in many places and filled with condensed, luminous wisdom in others. Consider this item:

Don't stay angry about anything for more than a week, but don't
forget what made you angry. Hold your anger out at end's length
and look at it, as if it were a glass ball. Then add it to your glass
ball collection.

If you are looking for something thoughtful, polished, angry at human stupidity but still hopeful and humane, consider reading these poems.

Background on My Poem “Sunshine”:

Today’s poem is about grim news, raw grey weather, and glimmers of hope, and was inspired by these solar arrays outside of Northfield.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! LESLIE

April 13, 2022: Spotlight on the Art of Karla Schultz; Background on My Poem “Stalking Beauty”

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Today is the birthday of my sister, Karla, an inspired photographer of the natural and built worlds. Above are just a few of the images she has made into cards and sent to me over the last few months. She graciously allowed me to share them with you today, and it makes me very happy to do so.

My poem for today, “Stalking Beauty,” draws its inspiration not only from Karla’s generous spirit and her luminous art but from these specific images. Happy Birthday, Karla! And thank you for helping me to see more clearly the beauty and love all around me.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! LESLIE

April 12, 2022: Spotlight on THE ART OF DROWNING by Poet Billy Collins; Background on My Poem “Stormy Weather”

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There are few who don’t already know and enjoy this volume of Billy Collins, his fifth collection, The Art of Drowning (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995). It has held an extra-special place in my own heart since 2015. Back then, Tim, Julia, and I had made plans to travel by Amtrak to Amherst for some east coast college visits, to visit friends, and (for me) to fulfill a long-held ambition to visit the home of Emily Dickinson. Well, we had to cancel those plans abruptly for reasons beyond our control. It was the rational decision, but it was a body blow nonetheless.

What consoled me then was rereading (by chance, so it seemed–hmmm, I wonder?) Collins poem, “Consolation,” the first in this collection. The poem is humorous, filled with sonorous sour grapes. It made me laugh. And then it sparked an homage poem, also called “Consolation,” by me about the aforementioned college visit trip’s cancellation. And today, these memories tie in to the topic of my poem for today (see below).

The whole volume repays reading and rereading. Collins humor with an edge remains keen for me, even instructive, even as I see my own copy is losing its pages, falling apart at the seams. No doubt Collins would find a metaphor it that!

Background on My Poem for April 12, “Stormy Weather”:

Weathervane, Minnesota Museum of Marine Art (Photograph by Leslie Schultz)

Regrettably, today’s slender lyric is a slice of life rather than a large-scale metaphor. Tim and I had planned to attend the workshop with poet Melissa Range, scheduled for this evening at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse in Winona, Minnesota. Hazardous weather alert for the whole of the region (accurately accounted for in the poem!) made us reluctantly decide not to risk the two-hundred mile round trip. (Maybe April is the cruelest month, after all? After all my rhymed and metered protest in the sonnet “April Exhilaration: In Praise of Northfield, In Response to T.S. Eliot”? Perish the thought!)

Train Car Graffiti Sums Up My Disappointment Over Cancelled Travel (Photo: Leslie Schultz)

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! Stay Safe and Dry! LESLIE

April 11, 2022: Spotlight on the Poem, “Bird Wings,” by Rumi (translation by Colman Barks); Background on My Poem, “Ice Feathers”

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Mevlana Statue, Buca.jpg
Tomb of the Persian Poet Known as Rumi

I was introduced to the poetry of Rumi (1207 to 1273 C.E.) by my dear friend, LaNelle Olson. When she travelled to Turkey, she returned with a small Persian carpet for my doll’s house and a small jar of dirt from the base of Rumi’s tomb.

LaNelle Olson, September 2003, Carleton Arboretum

Rumi’s poetry has continued to uplift and inspire me. I am grateful to contemporary American poet and translator Coleman Barks for providing the lens through which Rumi’s words can speak to me across the centuries. More recently, my friend and neighbor, poet and teacher Susan Jaret McKinstry, taught me about the poem, “Bird Wings,” to my attention. At her suggestion, I kept it on the refrigerator door and read it at least once a day until I had it memorized. 

Bird Wings
 

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a 
mirror
up to where you are bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and 
instead
here's the joyful face you've been
wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes, and opens
and closes.
If it were always a fist or always
stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small
contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and
coordinated
as bird wings.

     RUMI  (translation by Coleman Barks)

I receive similar inspiration from the photographic artistry of my sister, Karla Schultz. Below is one of her recent soaring images.

Hawk Soaring (Photo by Karla Schultz)

Background on My Poem “Ice Feathers”:

Today’s poem is a small meditation on stillness and motion, ice and air, what is inside and what is outside.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! Happy Meditating! LESLIE

April 10, 2022: Spotlight on TRAVELLING IN AMHERST by Poet Robert Francis; Background for My Poem “Wanderlust”

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View from Home on Winona Street: (Leslie Schultz: April 10, 2022)

As homebody Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) observed in her poem (1286), written at her desk in Amherst, Massachusetts, late in the 19th century:

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –

In so many ways, this poem conjures up the essence for me of her countryman and kindred spirit Robert Francis (1901-1987). The excerpts from his journal, penned over twenty years, that are gathered in Travelling in Amherst: A Poet’s Journal 1930-50 (Rowan Tree, Boston, 1986), tell the adventure story of living quietly and frugally, in a house he designed and built himself. Francis, a poet whose work has spoken to me so often that I have some of his short, crystalline lyrics by heart. (My special favorites are “Sheep” and “Blue Winter”.)

Within his journal, Francis compares himself to Thoreau, and the comparison has merit. Francis lived in the woods frugally on soy beans, income from teaching (often violin), some meager royalties and magazine payments for poems, and little else besides the wide-flung and determined joy of living a quiet life according to his own inner light.

His other two major works in my library are Robert Francis: Collected Poems 1936-1976 (The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1976) and The Trouble with Francis: An Autobiography of Robert Francis (The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1971). He has other volumes of prose, and individual collections of poems.

Francis deserves now, as he deserved during his lifetime, to be more widely read, funded, and appreciated. Yet, as poet George Herbert observed, “The best revenge is living well.” Francis did have many friends, won numerous awards during his lifetime, and, despite bleak times, ultimately published a great deal. I look up to Robert Francis as a gentle, ferociously talented and productive poet and a good man who lived well. We can all be glad he left, in his poems and his works of memoir, a full record of his sojourn here on earth.

Background on My Poem “Wanderlust”:

I have been writing fiction this year, and because of this I have been interested in how plots work. In my reading, I keep encountering different distillations, such as “Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy wins girl” or “trauma as animating back story.” This poem arose from mulling over the redactive dictum that “There are only two plots: a stranger comes to town, or a person sets off on a journey.” I suppose there is some truth to these structural suppositions, as there is to defining a dwelling as “a roof, a floor, and walls.” Yet even with cookie-cutter building and common elements, every home is distinct. As a reader, I love to compare and to contrast. As a writer, I suppose that I try to say something that hasn’t been exactly said before but that chimes with what already exists…with varying degrees of success, of course!

Image of the Mississippi (Leslie Schultz, 2021)

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! Happy Mulling! LESLIE