Tag Archives: Poet Sally Nacker

My Poem, “The Beauty of Emptiness,” is in the Winter 2023 Issue of THE ORCHARDS POETRY JOURNAL

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The Winter 2023 issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal has just been published online. The winter issue always arrives just when one wants to curl up under a lap robe with a cup of hot tea and read the grey afternoon away. (Here in Minnesota as I write, we are still waiting for snow, making do with rain, so this entrancing cover is, in more than one way, a promise of things to come.)

Because this issue was just posted yesterday, I have not read it from end to end yet–that would just be plain greedy! What I have looked at so far online makes me anticipate even more being able to read the paper copy coming in the early days of the new year.

Perusing the table of contents, I was struck by the title,”Lake of the Isles, March 2017.” Surely this must refer to the place I know very well in Minneapolis! It does. The poet, Paula Reed Nancarrow, is a Minnesota poet, as I discovered. After reading her eloquent elegy, a masterful villanelle filled with the lights and shadows of the season, I subscribed to her blog.

Another title that jumped out at me was “Yachats,” a poem by Jennifer Stewart. The title caught me because it was a new word to me but it whisked me back to the world of my girlhood on the Oregon coast. (“Yachats,” I discovered, is the name of a small coastal town whose name means “dark waters at the foot of the mountain” in the Siletz language.) This free verse poem was powerfully evocative of both place and the language that fixes it in consciousness. I could smell the salty fogs and feel the smooth undulations of driftwood. I also learned that she reviews her favorite Asian movies at youtube.com@dramajen.

Hoarfrost in Sun (Leslie Schultz, 2016)

I am also pleased to see a lovely poem from friend Sally Nacker, entitled, “Geese,” on page 38!

You can read the issue online or down load a PDF copy for free; finely printed and bound paper copies are available for $17.00 a copy at the Kelsay Books webite. (My own poem appears on page 104.) It always feels like a real achievement to be published in the pages of this journal. Reflecting back, I am pleased that the title poem for my first collection of poetry, “Still Life with Poppies,” appeared in The Orchards inaugural edition in August 2016. In the seven years since, though I can hardly believe it, they have accepted 19 poems (and rejected scores of others, of course!) Even more important, this journal has introduced me to the art and craft of dozens of poets I respect.

Happy Reading! Happy Holidays! Stay Warm!

Icy Web, Icy Eave (Leslie Schultz 2016)

THE ORCHARDS POETRY JOURNAL Winter 2022 Issue is Published; “Stalking Beauty,” My Poem, Is Included

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It has arrived! The newest issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal is here, just in time to bring color, cheer, and interest to darkening winter days.

I am particularly happy to have included in this issue a poem I wrote on April 13, 2022 in honor of my sister’s birthday and my contribution that day to the celebration of National Poetry Month. This poem Karla, inspired by her art, is titled “Stalking Beauty.” It is found on page 121. The poem is fourteen lines, not a sonnet but a variation that I call a “sonnet-like object,” and is a tribute to Karla’s work as a photographer.

This issue–the longest I have seen yet, packed with interesting work, and available on paper in both hard and soft cover, as well as online or in a pdf–offers plenty of indoor diversion for snowy days and evenings. I have enjoyed seeing new work by some familiar names, including fellow Minnesotan Susan McLean (“Takedown” on page 24) and longtime friend Sally Nacker (“Lantern Light” on page 38) from Connecticut and discovering some favorite poems by poets new to me, such as the poem “Photograph” on page 141 by Thomas DeFreitas, a Massachusetts poet, and the masterful sonnet with a marvelous twist on a modern topic, “Selfie,” (on page 88) by Jane V. Blanchard who lives and writes in Georgia.

I hope that you will find something in this issue to brighten your day, no matter how grey or filled with chores is might be! LESLIE

Dawn: Garbage Day on Winona Strret

Tipton Poetry Journal Publishes My Poem, “White Flag”

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I wasn’t able to figure out how to share an image of the cover of the Winter 2021 issue of Tipton Poetry Journal, published out of the poetic circles of Tipton, Indiana, so instead I am sharing a similar (but vintage) image from my small orbit here in Northfield, Minnesota.

I hope that you will take a moment to open the link below, though, not only to see the lovely image of the cover but to read the contents of this ingenious e-facsimile of a paper journal. (I love being able to turn the digital pages instead of scrolling down.) Naturally, I am delighted to see my poem about Edna St. Vincent Millay appearing in the new issue of Tipton Poetry Journal.

Image result for edna st vincent millay
This is the image of St. Vincent Millay that hung over my desk for many years, including my work desk back in the Carleton Development Office.

I have long been taken with the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Milly. (If you have ever used the expression “burning your candle at both ends, then you, too, might enjoy this four-line poem of hers, first published 101 years ago, in 1920.)

My own poem was inspired when my friend, Sally Nacker, (whose poetry and essay work is familiar to readers of Winona Media) returned from visiting St. Vincent Millay’s home in Steepletop, now the headquarters of the Millay Society, in Austerlitz, New York. Sally sent me a postcard of the poet’s writing studio and also shared the story of her relationship with her husband, Eugene Boissevain, who devoted his life to help her vocation as a poet.

This issue of Tipton Poetry Journal also contains diverse work by these poets:Tobi Alfier, Jonathan Bracker, Matthew Brennan, Simona Carini, Alan Cohen, Ken Craft, Michele Penn Diaz, Diane Glancy, G Timothy Gordon, Charles Grosel, Shakiba Hashemi, C.T. Holte, James Croal Jackson, Jennifer Ruth Jackson, Jerry Jerome, Michael Jones, Robert S. King, Mary Hill Kuck, Charlene Langfur, Bruce Levine, J. Lintu, Jack e Lorts, Ken Meisel, Karla Linn Merrifield, Theresa Monteiro, George Moore, Julie L. Moore, Cameron Morse, Thomas Osatchoff, Lynn Pattison, Akshaya Pawaskar, Nancy Kay Peterson, Timothy Robbins, Seth Rosenbloom, Michael Salcman, Hamilton Salsih, Sara Sarna, Leslie Schultz, Dave Seter, Mary Shanley, Raj Sharma, Michael E. Strosahl, James Eric Watkins and Diane Webster.

Dan Carpenter reviews Linda Neal Reising’s The Keeping.
Cover Photo:   “Snowman 2021” by Barry Harris.

Fun factoid: Sally took the author photo of me outside of the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.

Wishing you a fun if frosty day!

LESLIE

#faribofrosty

The Orchards Poetry Journal Publishes My Poems “Tiny Troubadour” and “Dogwoods”

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It is always an occasion when The Orchards Poetry Journal publishes a new issue. This issue is something even more special to many of us, since it features the poetry of the late Kim Bridgford. I think it is no exaggeration to say that everyone who knew Kim feels bereft since her death last spring. I certainly do. After meeting her just once, at the AWP Conference in 2015 in Minneapolis, I became inspired by her work as a poet, scholar, and editor, and by her natural, generous, open-hearted way of moving through the world as a full human being. I will be forever grateful for her encouragement of my own work (by accepting a number of poems for her journal, Mezzo Cammin, and for contributing blurbs for my first two collections) and for the inspiration of her own work. (My own particular favorite of her collections is called Hitchcock’s Coffin: Sonnets About Classic Films, but all her work is deft, deep, and indelible.)

This issue of The Orchards contains a beautiful photograph of Kim, a summary of Kim’s many accomplishments and a moving note by her son, Nicki Duvall. Most importantly, it provides a taste of her astonishing work as a poet. I will be reading and rereading all of these for a long time.

This issue also contains a lovely poem, “Saying Goodbye,” from Sally Nacker (whose work is familiar to long-time readers of Winona Media, and who first introduced me to Kim Bridgford), and two of my own poems from the last year or so, “Tiny Troubadour” and “Dogwoods.” I wrote the first, a sonnet, last year after a bachelor wren in our garden during the nesting season of 2019 touched my heart, and I wanted to show it to Kim but that was not to be, so it is dedicated to her. (This wren returned to our garden this past summer of 2020, attracted a mate, and raised two broods.) “Dogwoods” is for my friend, Judy, inspired by her and her love of the natural world–garden, prairie, and woods.

You can read this issue online HERE, and order your own paper copy HERE.

Happy reading! Wishing you a peaceful and artistic winter season!

LESLIE