Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz Poetry

TIPTON POETRY JOURNAL Publishes Its Summer 2021 Issue and Includes My Poem, “Worldly Goods”

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August Evening, Keepsake Cidery, Northfield (2021)

Tipton Poetry Journal has just released its latest issue. It can be read online here. Paper copies are available on Amazon.com. I am thrilled that the summer 2021 issue includes my own poem, “Worldly Goods.”

This issue of Tipton Poetry Journal also contains diverse work by these poets: Gilbert Allen, Jake Bailey, Bethany Bowman, Edward Bynum, Charles Cantrell, Susan Cossette, Rosaleen Crowley, Patricia Davis-Muffett, Milton P. Ehrlich, Kim Garcia, D. Walsh Gilbert, Morgan Hamill, Lois Marie Harrod, Lisa Hase-Jackson, John Haugh, M.A. Istvan, D.R. James, Nancy K. Jentsch, Tim Kahl, Michael Keshigian, W.F. Lantry, Doris Lynch, John Maurer, David Melville, Lorne Mook, Douglas Nordfors, Robert Okaji, Lynn Pattison, Simon Perchik, Roger Pfingston, Matt Prater, Donna Pucciani, Patrick T. Reardon, Janet Reed, Sarah Rehfeldt, Timothy Robbins, Russell Rowland, Claire Scott, Allen Shadow, Jeanine Stevens, R.S. Stewart, Vincent J. Tomeo, Robert Tremmel, Melanie Weldon-Soiset, Anne Whitehouse, A.D. Winans, Edytta Anna Wojnar, Kenton K. Yee, and Alessio Zanelli.

Dan Carpenter reviews Matthew Brennan’s collection, Snow in New York; (Lamar University Press, 2021).

Cover Photo:   “Old Barn: Brown County” by Brendan Crowley.

Wishing you superlative autumn weather–and satisfying reading–wherever you are!

Leslie

Postcard for April 26, 2021 & a Lagniappe for Richard Wilbur–My Poem “Two Voices in a Starbucks”

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After the post in the wee hours this morning on Richard Wilbur, I realized that I had neglected to mention one poem of his that has affected my own work. His “Two Voices in a Meadow” is masterful and lives in my heart and brain (yes, I do have it memorized!)

Some years ago, I wrote an homage poem to his poem. Mine is called “Two Voices in a Starbucks” and was first published in Mezzo Cammin and then included in my most recent book-length collection, Concertina.

I’m sharing it again, here, as a “lagniappe”, a little something extra, a Cajun French term I learned during my years in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where I encountered both Community Coffee and Wilbur’s poetry! (I am also including a link to his more masterful and nuanced poem–do read his first and last!)

LESLIE

Two Voices in a Starbucks
                        (for Richard Wilbur)
 
 
                        Coffee
 
I grow on mountain slopes
cooled by the breath of God,
a rosy, cozy berry.
My bean outshines its pod.
I submit to fire and blade.
My flavor is my yield.
Drop by drop, I offer up
the fragrance of the field.
 
                        Tea
 
My legend says the Buddha
refused his mountain sleep
by cutting off his eyelids:
these leaves you wake to steep.
Thanks to India and China
the world can now create
my delicate, leafy brew
to sip, to meditate.
 
 
Leslie Schultz
 

A New Anthology, AN AMARANTHINE SUMMER, Honoring Poet and Teacher Kim Bridgford, Includes Three of My Own Poems

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This lovely anthology, a festschrift honoring the late Dr. Kim Bridgford (whom I knew through her journal, Mezzo Cammin) is just out from Kelsay Books. It contains work from other poets whom I know (either personally and/or through their work)–Sally Nacker, Jean L. Kreiling, Karen Kelsay, and Ryan Wasser. Wasser, who is one of the editors who helmed this memorial volume, has also contribute a moving introduction that is a testimony to the positive and lasting effect Kim had on those around her. I am pleased to have three poems of my own included: “Rain Clouds to the East,” “Tiny Troubadour,” and “Silhouette: July Evening.”

It seems fitting for this to be published just as the summer season approaches, when living is a bit easier and the memories made a bit sweeter and more effortless.

April 9, 2021: Spotlight on THE ODE LESS TRAVELLED: UNLOCKING THE POET WITHIN by Stephen Fry; and Context for the Poem “Unicursal”

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Stephen Fry is a man of many talents, that much is clear. Four years ago, during NaPoWriMo on April 21, 2017, I included a video clip of him as Jeeves, instructing his employer, Bertie Wooster, in how to accentuate the syllables of Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” to add context to that day’s poem, “A Question of Style.

I often reach for Stephen Fry’s  peerless book on prosody, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Gotham Books, 2005). Like his perfectly realized Jeeves, Fry is a master of rhythm and rhyme. Fry’s book is filled with lucid and succinct summaries of elements of poetic form presented with Fry’s devastating wit, with each poetic form illustrated by custom-made examples by Fry that edify as they amuse. (The occasional screamingly funny but x-rated quips make it unsuitable for the under-sixteen set, in my opinion, except in excerpted form.) If you are of voting age and curious about the ins and outs of iambs, or want to distinguish meter from rhythm, or crave an algorithm describing the sestina–this is the go-to book.

This book is not only a treasure trove of prosodical pearls, it is page-turning prose. No one has mastered the concept of “voice” on the page in quite like Fry. In sum, this gem is never dry, often wry, always totally “Fry.”

Regarding the Poem for April 9, “Unicursal”

Me, in the center of the now-vanished labyrinth at 114 Winona Street

Given today’s unlooked for poem, perhaps labyrinths are done with me yet!

Wishing you a lovely day,

LESLIE

Third Wednesday Magazine Publishes My Poem, “Energy Audit”

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Since it arrived a few days ago, I have been reading–savoring–the most recent issue of Third Wednesday Magazine. As you likely know, this quarterly journal couples diversity of form and subject matter with high quality in poetry, prose, and visual arts. This magazine, now in its 13th year, is also generous to writers and readers in making electronic copies freely available. (Paper copies, beautifully printed and bound, are available on Amazon or through a subscription.)

I am very pleased to have my poem, “Energy Audit,” appearing amidst so many other poems that give me pleasure and I know I will read again. This issue also contains the winners of the magazine’s annual poetry contest–you won’t want to miss these!

From rainy Northfield, Minnesota, wishing you happy reading and writing on this fourth Wednesday in March and every day!

LESLIE