Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz photography
Postcard: March 9, 2015
Ten Things I Learned in One Year of Blogging; What’s Next? “The Captain” (Poem)
What Course to Chart Now?
Above: Lake St. Clair, the sixth Great Lake, the heart-shaped body between Lake Huron and Lake Erie
Here is a poem I wrote last summer, just after launching the year-long weekly blog project:
The Captain
Earlier today, I delivered a fresh
manuscript, to a poet friend, in a bag
emblazoned with a green mermaid, crowned, stamped
quirkily off-center onto the kraft paper.
Then I drove fifty miles in a rushing sea
of traffic to discuss, wheels within wheels,
the greening patterns labyrinths make on the
antique depths of our rushed, modern psyches.
Now, here I am, parked inside a Starbuck’s,
adrift in a lagoon of round tables,
trendy glasses in place (how I need them),
with my purple laptop up, my fingers
poised above the keys, ready to harpoon
a whole pod of insights from the deck
of my shining new vessel: the Blog Post.
Leslie Schultz
This has been a year of adventure. During this time, I have been able to keep my commitment of one post each Wednesday–Post #52 was published last week. In addition, (with technical support from Tim and Karla) I was able to add digital postcards on Mondays and holidays, as well as the occasional special post.
I launched into this year-long project in May because I knew Do Life Right, Inc. would be publishing And Sometimes Y during the summer. New convention says that it helps to have web presence, a “platform” (something I’ve associated with political parties only, until recently.) In the past year, though I don’t think it has helped my publisher or me reach the readers of my books, I’ve gained much from my blogging practice. Musing over the past twelve months, I’ve learned the following, and more.
1) A Blog is a New Art Form
Part scroll, part illuminated manuscript, part essay, part scrapbook and diary–the blog post is a new literary animal uniquely suited to matching a writer’s voice and images with readers in a way that offers the opportunity for near-instant feedback.
2) Blogs are Extremely Flexible
The blog is easily adaptable to each writer’s preoccupations, and format and length can be various. In my own experience, the blog post can handle anything from one line of text on a postcard and brief news alerts to lengthy interviews and scholarly essays, and anything in between. Posts can handle poetry, prose, and photographs with equal ease.
3) Blogs Can Create — and Enhance — Community
Through blog posts on a variety of topics of interest to me, I have connected online with people I have never actually met, reconnected with people I haven’t seen in a long time, and forged deeper connections with friends and family –we now know a bit more about what each other is interested in. A big “Thank You!” to everyone who responded to these posts and let me know of your enjoyment through emails and/or comments. That is what kept me going this year!
4) My Blog Helps Me Celebrate the Work of Others
Variety is the spice of life. Even I get a bit tired of my own work and my own point of view. I think my very favorite aspect of the blog post is the ability to shine a spot light on the work that other people are doing, work I admire and work in which I take great joy. For example, I have been able to:
*Showcase the extraordinary photographs of flora and fauna by my sister, Karla Schultz;
*Share interviews with labyrinth maker Marilyn Larson, editors Jan Rider Newman and Jessica Roach Fergusson, teacher Julia Denne, book seller Jerry Bilek, authors J.J.M. Braulick and Liana Cole, and dancer Atia Cole;
*Publish the poetry of Ronald Wallace and Tim Braulick, as well as some classic poets; an essay of Beth Dyer Clary; and the thoughts of many on their favorite book stores across the nation and the world;
*Highlight the good news in my orbit, including Northfield’s Sidewalk Poetry, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the Maria W. Faust Sonnet contest, Big Woods CSA Farm, and NASA’s poetry-to-Mars project, the world of Little Free Libraries, the Doors of San Diego, and the artist-enhanced utility boxes of Minneapolis, among other topics.
In addition, I have been able to share the lives of people who have made my own life richer: those of my four great-grandmothers and that of my friend E. Ryan Edmonds. Each of these women now has her own post, her own always-lighted shrine I can visit any time.
In many ways, the blog posts I have published this year reinforce my sense of how my life is interconnected with the kindness, generosity, wisdom, talent, and individuality of so many other people. This is, of course, true for each one of us, but sometimes that reality is eclipsed for a time. It is good to be reminded of how enriched I am every day by the intentions and actions and insights of others. The passions and accomplishments of those around me fuel my own sense of possibility.
5) Blogs Can Be Creative Stimulants
This year of blogging has coincided with a banner year of both new work and publishing. On the publishing side, I published more poems in more journals and pieces of pavement that I have ever done before, in addition to publishing my second novel for young people, a short story, and a long scholarly review of poet Ava Leavell Haymon’s new book, Eldest Daughter. I’ve also read my poetry publicly, was invited to speak to sixth-graders on my life as a poet (slipping in a workshop on rhythm and meter), and was featured in Dancing Sun Media documentary on Northfield’s Sidewalk Poetry Project. I find I have unprecedented energy for new poems, and I finished a long poem that I began in 1993, the primary poem, “Lady Tashat’s Mystery”, in a new book-length manuscript called Reading the Bones, refined with the help of poet friends Sally Nacker and D.E. Green. Last summer, I decided to finish two works-in-progress (adult fiction–novels), making some headway on each, and I also re-committed to a languishing quilt project (begun 10 years ago) that is now in the home stretch. Currently I am sending out poems to journals on a regular basis as well as sending out the book manuscript to potential publishers.
Coincidence? I think not.
In addition to the above, I have written several poems specifically for featured blog post topics. The ability to publish my own work — and the internal pressure to do so — has been very stimulating, indeed.
(Lady Tashat, Minneapolis Institute of Arts)
6) My Blog Helps Me Share My Other Work
In addition to sharing my work as an “artist” (poems, fiction, essays, and photographs), my blog has helped me to share my skills as an interviewer, a quilter, a cook, an arts advocate for my beloved home town of Northfield, a passionate reader, and (most especially) as a homeschooling mother.
7) A Blog Demands Patience
In this age of instant gratification, I have learned to wait for the right time to develop or publish some posts, while I have had ideas that look a long time to piece together after I had the initial idea (sometimes a title, sometimes a photo, sometimes a mere topic). The “PUBLISH” button gives the illusion that one has more control that one really does, because it is really off-limits until the post has a certain level of polish and completeness.(So far, thank goodness, I have not pushed it by mistake!) I have several ambitious draft posts now in various stages of readiness–hope to be able to sail those off to you when the leaves begin to turn.
8) A Blog Demands New Skills and Flexibility
This is especially true for someone like me who is not tech-savvy. I have learned how to cope with vast quantities of spam (heartfelt thanks to the developers of Akismet), new versions of WordPress, mysterious glitches, and weird freeze-ups and deletions. I have learned more than patience, though: I have learned how to combine images with text (art direction 101?), how to record and incorporate audio clips of poetry, how to create digital postcards with jpgs and Powerpoint, and how to approach strangers to ask for help on content or technical matters. None of this would be possible without the encouragement of visionary publisher Lisa Cottrell Bentley of DoLifeRight (www.doliferight.com), the step-by-step materials I purchased from blog guru Dan Blank of WeGrowMedia (www.wegrowmedia.com), and the reliable technical assistance and moral support and general cheer-leading from blogger and consultant Myrna Mibus and my very tech-savvy husband, Tim Braulick. Thank you, thank you!
9) Blogs Require Regular Time and Commitment
I knew that. I thought I did. Now I really do! The care and feeding of a blog is a part-time job. It is a blast, but (at least for me) it requires putting other projects on hold. This leads me to my final insight, the same insight I had at the start of this experiment, though now with a little different skew:
10) Change Can Be Good!
This year has been a watershed for me, and now I sense it is time for another change.
What’s Next?
Truthfully, I am not certain how I will structure things to come! That is probably also a good thing. I know I need a change of pace for the summer, so I am going to limit posts for June, July, and August to weekly and holiday postcards, news flashes (should any be warranted), and (perhaps) an occasional spontaneous essay. Come September, I plan to resume more in-depth posts, but the frequency and form remains to be seen.
Last October, I accepted the invitation of publisher Lisa Cottrell Bentley to submit a short video to the second annual Do Life Right Teleconference. My topic was my initial thoughts on blogging. (I include the link address here, for anyone who would like to check it out: http://www.doliferightinc.com/2013/10/23/leslie-schultz-on-doing-blogging-right)
This summer I plan to do that hardest thing for me: be unscheduled! If the spirit moves, I will spend more time on fiction, on adding homeschooling resources to Winona Media, and on shaping another book of poems. I plan to spend lots more time outside and lots more time reading (can’t have enough of that!).
Next week, before the hiatus, I have a special treat to offer: the work of a very perceptive poet and scholar, Sally Nacker, sharing her thoughts addressed to poet Amy Lowell in her moving and scholarly work, “Wings and Windows”, complete with vintage lantern slides of Lowell and her home and garden at Sevenels. And then, this first year of blogging will be full and complete, like a bulging scrapbook documenting a wonderful, various, momentous year of my life.
Finally, as I head off into the future, I would like to thank everyone who took time to read the blog, cheer me on with comments and emails, and assist with sharing of passion and ideas. If you have requests for “Posts of the Future”, let me know. This summer I shall be reevaluating what I have done and drawing up new plans. I would love to incorporate ideas from readers. Thanks, again, for sharing the ride.
Triangles, Triangles, Triangles
Sometimes as a photographer I become preoccupied with color, sometimes with repeated themes or objects, sometimes with form or line. Recently, in looking over past work, I was pulled toward images with strong triangular lines.
Then, while looking at my poetry from the past three decades, I found the mysterious poem I wrote about twenty years ago. The catalyst was a dream, quiet on the surface but overlaying weird unspoken and imaginary anxieties, held together with the image of the surveyor or navigator who depend upon triangulation to achieve results…another set references for the concept of ‘triangle’.
Triangles: glyphs of both stability and of instability.
I hope you enjoy these poetic and photographic evocations of this fundamental form!
Triangle
It’s on my mind, you say, as though
your mind were as flat as a table, with one
Platonic Idea riding above its polished surface
like a sleek craft bound for glory.
What’s on your mind?, you ask, casual,
thumbing a magazine while you unleash
a hurricane into our lives. My mind goes dark
momentarily. I am swept somewhere unfamiliar,
south of Bermuda, perhaps. Our compass
has a new point of reference,
another magnetic pull. We are three
dimensions but I can’t tell what
is up. This weird, unfathomable
triangulation of desire
spins me in tight circles of fear.
Call me when the coast
is clear.
Leslie Schultz
In Praise of Snow: Photography & Two Poems (“Like Snowflakes” and “Awaken”) by Leslie Schultz
I am not a rugged, outdoorsy, winter-camping type of person–not by a long shot–but I do find snow very beautiful. When I have lived in climates usually foreign to snow, I found that I longed for it, watched for it to fall.
In each snow-starved place where I’ve lived (the Oregon coast, Australia, Louisiana), I experienced one freakish, exciting, and memorable anomaly of snow-fall. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, schools were closed. Plows were brought down from Mount Hood but unpracticed drivers mounded the snow into the middle of thoroughfares, creating temporary barrier walls and hindering the flow of traffic. In the Blue Mountains of Australia, a family trip during the May school holidays (winter Down Under) found us shivering in thin sleeping bags in an uninsulated cabin, my brother coughing with what I remember as sudden-onset pneumonia, while stinging snowflakes whirled through the branches of the eucalyptus trees. In Louisiana, where I lived for two winters during my graduate school days, a Christmas snowstorm hit while I, like many people in sub-tropical Lake Charles, were away; the plunging temperatures snapped the exposed pipes of most houses in the historic district.
When I moved to Minnesota in the fall of 1985, there was an unseasonably early snow on September 17. I had just come from Louisiana, and I remember shivering in a coat without buttons, going out to purchase a scarf and a pair of red gloves.
Today, a veteran of twenty-nine consecutive winters, I still have a healthy respect for the power of snow to remake–if temporarily–our assumptions about the way our days will proceed. We keep a long-handled broom on the front porch (to push fallen snow off the cars) along with snow shovels, sand, and salt. I think letter carriers deserve hazard pay for being out all day in the cold, but I still thrill to the beauty of the falling snow, the transformations it leaves behind.
And, for me, one reliable side benefit of the season of snow is more time and inclination to write, and never so much so as this year. After decades in which prose held literary sway in my life–either non-fiction for clients or fiction commitments for me–this year, poems are arriving thick and fast. Recently, many have centered on snow and ice.
Here are two poems, the first written yesterday, the second written in 1980 while I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin and published first in Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar: 1982 and in my chapbook, Living Room (Midwestern Writers’ Publishing House, 1981).
Like Snowflakes
A hush, a storm,
a gentle arrival—
poems come in their season,
transform the landscape
of my life—
ah, the dazzle
of that fresh page—white—
with slight patterns—
bird-foot, cat-foot, wind—
and the sculptures
of ink-blue shadows.
Leslie Schultz (2014)
Awaken
to find my house afloat,
pitched on an ocean
of foam-flecked fields.
My breath dissolves a porthole.
The barn is sinking.
Cows break waves with their bellies,
monsters of the deep,
leaving trails of wake.
The wind has died;
its roar is small as a hollow shell.
The prairie is lashed,
capped with white,
washed stiff as fence posts.
Leslie Schultz (1981)
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