The Orchards Poetry Journalhas 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!
Last evening, it was my great pleasure to share the podium with poet Susan Jaret McKinstry at Magers & Quinn Booksellers at 3038 Hennepin Avenue South in Minneapolis–a few blocks from where Tim and I lived before we moved to Northfield. It was a dramatic evening in every respect, including a duet with Venus and the Crescent Moon and over-the-top weather conditions.
Leaving Northfield at Dusk
Despite howling Arctic winds gusting up to 45 miles per hour, dustings of new snow, and wind chill temperatures at nearly 30 below zero, necessitating the prudent cancellation by a dozen or so registrants, nearly 50 people braved the meterological hoopla to attend. We were so glad you did! Your thoughtful questions and audible appreciation made it a night to remember for Susan and me, and we both appreciated the chance for conversations after the reading.
It was my first visit to Magers & Quinn, and it seemed that everywhere I turned there was a book I knew I loved or one I wanted to get to know.
Behind the podium, Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, which I felt very lucky to read last month.
The first thing I saw upon entering Magers & Quinn Booksellers was this calendar with images by Ansel Adams. Because my new book contains the poem, “Motif for Ansel Adams”, I thought it was a good omen–and it was!
HERE is a link the YouTube recording of the evening.
Motif for Ansel Adams
I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite. Ansel Adams (February 20, 1902 to April 22, 1984)
He could see and was able to convey, this keen devotee of Yosemite. We need to hear what he needed to say.
As a boy, he was too sick to play, so he studied each musical key. He could see and was able to convey.
His father’s house, overlooking the bay of San Francisco, framed city and sea. We need to hear what he needed to say.
At fourteen, with family, on holiday, he first glimpsed his artistic destiny. He could see and was able to convey.
Dazzled by the soaring Sierra Madre, he fell headlong into photography. We need to hear what he needed to say.
Using black, white, and shades of grey, He reveals our land’s innate symphony. He could see and was able to convey. We need to hear what he needed to say.
Leslie Schultz
I had a marvellous time reading at this one-of-a-kind independent bookstore, and I shall be heading back to Magers & Quinn as an eager customer early in the new year. With their large inventory of new and used books (and other items) and exceptional staff, I know I will uncover literary gems I do not yet know exist. If I cannot find them on my own, well, I shall ask for ….
Wishing you happy reading over the holidays and into the new year! Hope to see you, too, browsing the shelves!
Books can now be ordered online from Kelsay Books and Amazon.com. (It amuses me no end that if I go to Amazon and search for “Geranium Lake,” there is a photograph of the cover of my book in a row of artist paints and pigments!!! Take a LOOK.)
In addition, the book can now be purchased at indispensible and always imaginative independent book store, Content Bookstore, located at 314 Division Street here in Northfield, or through their website.
I currently have two readings scheduled: a book launch at Content Book Store in Northfield, Minnesota on Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 7:00 p.m., followed by questions and signings, and on Wednesday, December 7, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at Mager and Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis at 7:00 p.m. The second one will be especially fun and interesting, because the reading will be shared with my dear friend and neighber, Susan Jaret McKinstry, who will also be reading from her amazing new collection of poems titled Tumblehome (Finishing Line Press, 2024.) I was able to read it in manuscript and was bowled over. Susan’s book can be ordered now, in advance of its imminent publication, from Finishing Line Press.
It would be wonderful to see you at one–or both–of these events.
Finally, last summer, when I was at Minnesota’s North Shore with my friend, Ann Lacy, I was delighted to learn that our waterfall hikes led us close to an actual place called the Flute River. Since this is the name of key poem in Geranium Lake, I had to see it. On our detour, Ann kindly agreed to film my reading of this poem with the Flute River behind me (and invisible but voracious mosquitoes swarming all around.) The poem is only sixteen short lines, the video under two minutes, but (for me, with my vestigial webmastering skills) it seems to take a long time to load and play–proceed with patience or disregard same.
I was introduced to the poetry of Rumi (1207 to 1273 C.E.) by my dear friend, LaNelle Olson. When she travelled to Turkey, she returned with a small Persian carpet for my doll’s house and a small jar of dirt from the base of Rumi’s tomb.
LaNelle Olson, September 2003, Carleton Arboretum
Rumi’s poetry has continued to uplift and inspire me. I am grateful to contemporary American poet and translator Coleman Barks for providing the lens through which Rumi’s words can speak to me across the centuries. More recently, my friend and neighbor, poet and teacher Susan Jaret McKinstry, taught me about the poem, “Bird Wings,” to my attention. At her suggestion, I kept it on the refrigerator door and read it at least once a day until I had it memorized.
Bird Wings
Your grief for what you've lost lifts a
mirror
up to where you are bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and
instead
here's the joyful face you've been
wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes, and opens
and closes.
If it were always a fist or always
stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small
contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and
coordinated
as bird wings.
RUMI (translation by Coleman Barks)
I receive similar inspiration from the photographic artistry of my sister, Karla Schultz. Below is one of her recent soaring images.
Hawk Soaring (Photo by Karla Schultz)
Background on My Poem “Ice Feathers”:
Today’s poem is a small meditation on stillness and motion, ice and air, what is inside and what is outside.
