Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz photography and poetry

April 17, 2024 A Preview of GERANIUM LAKE: POEMS ON ART AND ART-MAKING, Part IV, and Poem, “Ichthyography”

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Rare Sighting–Spring Scilla Fish

The poem below is the title poem of the fourth section of Geranium Lake. It was written for National Poetry Month in 2019. HERE is the post from way back then. The poems in this section are all, in one way or another, about the artistic priniciples and practice derived from the natural world, or, more accurately, the non-human natural world, since humans, too, are part of nature. (The amnesiac part, I often think–the tiny drop that thinks itself separate from the ocean.)

Aquarium
Ichthyography
  
 What would it be like, the writing
 of fish? Something shining, I think,
 a muscular, flowing
 calligraphy, 
 a Piscean script—
 accents of whirlpool
 and fin flip.
  
 Shimmering, 
 colorful circumlocutions
 used, like kennings, over and over, 
 and with lots of sudden twists
 and turns in the plot, breaks
 long as winter, slower to resolve
 than river fog rising.
  
 What would it be like 
 to write not with ink
 or light but with water?
 Describing each fresh syllable 
 with my whole body, then
 erasing it all as I go,
 every gesture a metaphor?
 
Leslie Schultz
Goldfish, Como Conservatory

May this be a day when every cloud shape and tree branch finds a way to speak to you! LESLIE

Aquarium Rainbows

April 15, 2024 A Preview of GERANIUM LAKE: POEMS ON ART AND ART-MAKING, Part II, and Poem, “The Eyes of the Dead: A Synesthesia”

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Black Rooster–Art in Bloom–Minneapolis Institute of Art 2018 (Photo: Leslie Schultz0

The second section of Geranium Lake is called “Black Kites.” The name comes from a poem written for National Poetry Month in 2018. This section holds poems that are a bit darker and starker, inspired by sculpture and painting, as well as some photographs, posters, and insignia used for documentary and sometimes propagandistic purposes. (You can see that poem, and a photo of the sculpture that inspired it HERE.)

Today’s poem was inspired by the dislocation that can come when some remnant from the distant past, even a past one did not oneself experience, evokes an intangible, unsettling, but powerful response. This kind of amorphous, multi-faceted summoning is part of what gives art its enduring value. The book of photographs (cover image above) that inspired the poem, full of the extreme contrasts found in Tsarist Russia, below can be found in the synopsis at Publisher’s Weekly.

The Eyes of the Dead: A Synesthesia
(inspired by Before the Revolution, St. Petersburg in Photographs)


I turn these pages rich with photographs:
women, men, children—like mournful giraffes;
long-suffering horses under heavy yokes;
carts and Romanov carriages, gilded spokes
and iron wheels; ramparts of bricks and stones
(some still standing); lofty hats; rigid bones
(beneath silk bodices—human and whale);
jumbles of crockery; one pint of ale.

I close the covers, lift the heavy tome.
Setting it on a shelf, I think the room
is quiet but then a faint perfume
of haunting eyes—pierced with the foreknown gloom
that this wide earth is temporary home—
knocks inside my brain, demands its own poem.

Leslie Schultz
Fruit (Photo: Leslie Schultz)

Wishing you a day of striking and informative contrasts along with startlingly new perceptions, LESLIE

April 14, 2024 A Preview of GERANIUM LAKE: POEMS ON ART AND ART-MAKING, Part I, and Poem, “I Wanted to Be a Painter”

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The biggest poetry news on my own horizon is the publication of my fourth full-length collection of poems. It is called Geranium Lake: Poems on Art and Art-Making. It is scheduled to come out mid-to-late summer, and is being published by the Aldrich Press imprimateur of Kelsay Books. Many of the poems in the collection were written over the past eight years in response to the April Poem-a-Day challenge. The title, and the title poem, were inspired by the pigment, geranium lake, which was used often by Van Gogh and other Impressionist painters.

The collection is divided into eight sections. For me, ekphrastic poetry is a very big tent, indeed, covering poems inspired by and/or describing any art-form, high or low, insider or outsider, and even the way nature exhibits artistic and design principles. Over the next eight days, I will give a one-poem glimpse into each section, and offer a little background on that poem.

The first section is called “Color Wheel” and in centered on poems about painting–both particular paintings and the act of making pictures by brushing paint onto canvas. “I Wanted to Be a Painter” was written on my second stay at the “Art Loft” apartment over the Lanesboro Arts shop on Parkway Avenue in the bluff country river town of Lanesboro, Minnesota. It was first published in ONE ART: a journal of poetry.

Once upon a time…Julia’s visit to the studio of Fred Sommers…
I Wanted to Be a Painter


And I still do.
I picture lying down
to soak up malachite
and vermillion
through my pink skin,
rubbing my face with wild 
persimmon and aubergine,
then washing myself clean
with icy aquamarine.

I’ve tried. It’s true.
See from these twisted,
empty tubes just what
I cannot do.

So I retreat now into
bone-pale paper-birch strips,
add marks in reed-strokes
of midnight tone,
all hushed, mute, 
stark—
each line one sharp-edged
Scandinavian hue.


Leslie Schultz

Wishing you a day of color and joy, LESLIE

Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin–Madison

April 13, 2024 A Birthday Bouquet from Karla!

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(Photo by Karla Schultz)
(Photo by Karla Schultz)
(Photo by Karla Schultz)
(Photo by Karla Schultz)
(Photo by Karla Schultz)

Everyday, I am inspired by the art of my sister, Karla. This year, she agreed to select, from her thousands of flower images, some of her own favorites to share with us today, on her birthday. Thank you, Karla!

Wishing you long life and joy every day!

The Freshest Flowers


are those strongly rooted,
alive to sun and dew,
each one distinct
as a crystal of snow.

Look closely. Lean in.
Wonder at varied hues,
at pattern with infinite--
but not-quite--repetition.

Call this Nature 
or call this Art:
a flower captures
the human heart.


Leslie Schultz
Daffodils and Scilla in Our Garden This Morning (Photo by Leslie Schultz)

April 8, 2024 Eclipse Thoughts

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Garden Sunflower, 2021

What kind of event is it when a solar eclipse is, itself, eclipsed by cloud and rain? That is our situation here today. Elsewhere in the world, people are gathered for the rare show of the Moon passing in front of the Sun, a stately and celestial pas-de-deux.

To mark the occasion, I am publishing a poem that has not yet, I think, seen the light of day, but it was inspired by the solar eclipses in 2013, and by the Northfield Sidewalk Poetry competition held that year.

Is the Moon afraid
of its dark side?
Is the Sun proud 
of its flare?
Can I accept
my whole, wild heart
when it holds 
too much to bear?

Leslie Schultz

(I submitted three poems that year, including this one, and a different one–a celebration of pollination–was chosen, which can be seen below.)

Last week, I spotted this (below) posted in the Northfield Public Library–always a place for community and timely programming! Of course, wherever you are, when you look up into the sky, do protect your eyes from direct views into the sun.

May you see something rare today!

LESLIE