Tag Archives: Poet Susan Jaret McKinstry

Susan Jaret McKinstry and I Team Up Again–Reading at Zenith Bookstore in Duluth on May 1, 2025

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Susan Jaret McKinstry and I will be reading at Zenith Bookstore in Duluth, Minnesota on the first evening in May–an appropriate coda to National Poetry Month 2025. Zenith Bookstore was founded by former Northfielders Bobby and Angel Dobrow. If you–or a poetry lover you know–will be in Duluth that evening, we would love to see you there.

Full Details:

Thursday May 1st, 2025 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m

Here is some text from the Zenith Bookstore’s Event Page. (Please feel free to share!)

“Join us as we welcome educator and poet Susan Jaret McKinstry and author and poet Leslie Schultz on Thursday, May 1st at 7pm. Susan will share her new chapbook Tumblehome and Leslie will read from her latest book Geranium Lake: Poems on Art and Art-Making. They will discuss their books, poetry, and answer questions from attendees. Books will be available for purchase at the event.”

Tumblehome by Susan Jaret McKinstry is structured like a musical composition. It moves in three sections as it interweaves and deepens themes of home, time and loss. The poems contemplate vast human history and the small space of our lives in distinct voices and episodes, with closely-observed objects – coins, stones, birds, water – reappearing and echoing to create a harmonic poetic travelogue.

Named for a bold pink pigment that fades over time, Leslie Schultz’s vibrant collection Geranium Lake: Poems on Art and Art-Making is an ekphrastic extravaganza as well as a meditation on age, time, and beauty. Schultz’s refreshing curiosity is evident as she engages with individual works of art and with larger issues of looking, curation, and display.

Susan Jaret McKinstry is a professor of 19th c British literature, narrative theory, journalism, and creative writing at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She has published poems in Plain Songs I & II, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, and many others. Susan yearns for the sea and has been lucky to teach and write in Ireland, Scotland, Norway, London, Florence, and Moscow.

Leslie Schultz has six collections of poetry. Her poetry has appeared widely in such journals as Poet Lore, Mezzo Cammin, Midwest Quarterly, and others. In addition to poems, she publishes photographs, essays, and fiction; makes quilts and soups; and happily mucks about in a garden plagued by shade, rabbits, and walnut trees.

Haikus 8-5-4 for the Minnesota Sierra Club: Northfield Poets Well Represented in the 2025

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In January, Tim and I were thrilled to see we are both on the same page–with haiku accepted for the 2025 celebration sponsored by the Minnesota Sierra Club! A riff on traditional haiku structure, these haiku offer three-line poems with syllable counts of 8-5-4 in order to reflect the 854 cities in our state whose people care about the environment. Alerted to this challenge by D. E. Green and Becky Boling, we were really pleased to see many familiar names under selected haiku, and that our own Winona Street was represented five times: not only Doug and Becky, but also by Susan Jaret McKinstry, Tim, and me.

The North Star Chapter (Minnesota) of the Sierra Club represents 50,000 Minnesotans joined to protect our precious natural resources while enjoying the four distinctive biomes of our state (aspen parklands, deciduous forests, coniferous forests, and prairie grasslands).

Like all issues of the magazine, the North Star Journal contains great articles on what is going on in the state in terms of energy use and resource conservation. It is also responsibly printed and filled with artistic layouts. With a circulation far larger than most forums for poetry, it is also a vehicle for the literary arts that reachs 50,000 people.

Thank you, Sierra Club–North Star Chapter!

Reading at The Book Store in Appleton, WI on January 23, 2025 (Leslie Schultz and Susan Jaret McKinstry)

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Appleton, Wisconsin Skyline with Lawrence University in the foreground
Appleton West High School

Once upon a time, I lived in Appleton, WI. It was while I was a student at Appleton West High School that I took my first creative writing class, began reading poetry seriously (thanks to the stacks of the public library). It is also where I published my first poems, in the student-run literary publication, Patterns of Stardust. That was back in the days of construction paper covers, staples, mimeographs, and manual typewriters. (Juvenilia, anyone?) (Sorry, I have glued the pages shut!)

This Thursday, January 23, 2025, from 5:00-6:30 p.m., poet Susan Jaret McKinstry will be reading at a wonderful independent bookstore, The Book Store, located at 801 West College Avenue. This venue offers used and new books and hosts a variety of events, including one for knitters and readers. It opened its doors in 1977, the year I graduated from high school. I am delighted that it has thrived all these years, and even more thrilled to return as an author and to be able to read there with Susan. If you are in the area that evening, please join us!

Happy Reading!!! LESLIE

THE ORCHARDS POETRY JOURNAL (Winter 2024) is Published!

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The Orchards Poetry Journal has just published its Winter 2024 issue. Paper copies can be purchased from the Kelsay Books website or Amazon, and the issue can be read and downloaded in digital form for free.

This issue is especially welcome because it includes not only my own poem, “Celestial Navigation”, written during National Poetry Month in 2022, but a beautiful and thoughtful poem by my friend and neighbor, Susan Jaret McKinstry, entitled “Seasoning.” There are dozens of other interesting poems in this issue, too. I know that I shall enjoy reading a few each morning once my paper copy arrives. If anything can chase away these December grey clouds, The Orchards will do it.

Wishing you much light and joy this reading season!

LESLIE

UPDATE! YouTube Recording of Last Night’s Reading at Magers & Quinn Booksellers

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For anyone who would like to see the video kindly posted by Magers & Quinn, here it is on their YouTube channel.