“Autumn Joy in Our Garden” (Leslie Schultz, October 2025)
For me, the publication of a new issue of MockingHeart Review is always an event, and that is even more true on those occasions when the journal includes one of my own poems, as it does this time, because I am truly happy to be in company with so many talented poets and artists.
To find my poem, “Ships”, inspired by childhood memories of the Coos River in Oregon, click HERE.
Even better, to look at the entire issue, chockful of poems and art work, go to the home page of MockingHeart Review, click on “Volume 10, Issue 3”. I think you will find it an oasis of insight and beauty.
Wishing you a splendid autumn day!
LESLIE
“Fall Fruit, Northfield, MN” (Leslie Schultz, October 2025)
I am so happy that this beautiful new issue of MockingHeart Review includes my own poem, “Planet Burning.” Based a childhood memory, this poem refracts that memory through my current concern about unnatural/human-induced climate change. I feel that it is perfectly showcased in this issue of one of my favorite online journals, one filled with work that filled up my winter day with artistry and idealism.
Among the featured poems of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, I am very drawn to “Healing Spell” and suspect that I shall return to read it often. I am not surprised to learn from her notes that she is a yoga student as well as poet. And I am grateful for her artist’s notes for helping me to understand the back story for her poem, “Saving the Farm.”
Kathryn de Leon’s poem, beautifuly slantwise Covid wisdom, “Whiskey and Chocolates” made laugh and nod my head. Jean Janicke’s poignantly and hysterically funny poem, “Evaluate Your Passion,” brought new focus for me to thinking about changing eyesight. Eric Christopher Uphoff, “The Furnace Stays Lit,” surprised me with delight. Finally the beautifully rendered images of Amy Marques–visual poetry & erasure poetry–made me think about how words and all they summon swim in and out of consciousness. To see her work, look at the tab for featured art work.
You will have your own favorites, of course, and I would love to hear which of these poems speak to you.
Yesterday was a day I am not likely to forget: on June 1, the online journal, MockingHeart Review, published their second issue for 2021, and this one includes three of my own poems. Not only that, but they honored me by asking me to be the Feature Poet for this issue, and included brief notes on each of the three poems: “Tree Wells”, “Paper Mill”, and “April 1: Raspberry Fools”.
The issue is, as usual for MockingHeart Review, filled with stunning poems and art work from a variety of poets and artists. I encourage you to take a look, to savor the creativity on the page at this moment when the creativity of the natural world is unfurling and unspooling everywhere we look. In this issue, I was stunned by the gorgeous digital paintings of Irish artist Edward Lee. He also contributes a meditative poem, titled “Cracked”, to this issue. At the conclusion of Peggy Turnbull’s poem, “The Prettiest City in Mexico”, I cheered! Then I read that Turnbull was an academic librarian who is, in retirement, diving into all kinds of success in poetry, and I couldn’t help but cheer again. I read Tom Barlow’s lyrical account of a day, “After the Falcon”, to my husband, and we agreed that its nuanced lines echoed our own experiences and sometimes heart-aches in trying to offer shelter to wildlife in our garden. Then, I was delighted, in an off-beat kind of way, by Jason Ryberg’s poem, “Off-Handed (Ode to Lee Child)”, not only because I, too, have enjoyed Lee Child’s thrillers but because of his Northfield roots and my own memories of his parents, Bill and Nancy, and his brother, Doug. (Such are the ripple effects of art, eventually connecting to the whole world.) Really, each of these entries has made me stop and think and be glad be in a world where life is celebrated by art.
You will find your own favorites, of course–I would love to know what they are.
It was in writing the notes on my own poems, requested by MockingHeart Review editor Tyler Robert Sheldon, that I realized there was a theme connecting each of my three poems included in this issue. Each has a different form and subject, but all three deal in some way with impetuosity and its consequences, imagined and actual.
Below are some of my photographs that echo the poetry, two for each poem.
Happy June!
LESLIE
Winter TreesWinter Stone, Winter DangerPaper Birch Near Mill, NorthfieldSculpture, American Swedish Institute, 2015, Honoring Alice Munro’s 2013 Nobel Prize in LiteratureWild RaspberriesRaspberry Harvest
The Summer 2020 issue ofMockingheart Review is now up, and I am pleased to have one of my own poems included in it. MockingHeart Review is an online literary journal. Founded as an poetry magazine in 2015 by Louisiana poet Clare L. Martin, MHR is now under the editorship of poet and critic Tyler Robert Sheldon. Their site highlights this quote from a former U.S. Poet Laureate that resonates with me:
“Poetry provides us with a history of the human heart.” -Billy Collins
I haven’t yet had time to read all this new work in Volume 5, issue 2, but of the poems I have read, I particularly like “The Woman in an Imaginary Painting” by Tom Montag and “The Trouble with Billy Collins’ Poetry” by Andrew Ball.
I am also intrigued by the first mysterious image by the featured visual artist, Lynda Frese.
(Navigating tip from my in-house tech guru: use “Control -” to make the display smaller; this will allow you to access the bottom of the list of poets & poems.)
