Poet Leslie Schultz to Speak at Laureate Writers Series

Tuesday | July 9 | 7:00pm
Blue Heron Coffee House | 162 E 2nd St

Poet, fiction writer and essayist, Leslie Schultz will read from her new collection of poetry, Concertina, as part of the Laureate Writers Series. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. The program is free and open to the public. The series is co-sponsored by the Blue Heron and the City of Winona. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE WILL NOT MEET ON JULY 2nd.

Leslie Schultz is the author of two previous collection of poetry, Cloud Song and Still Life with Poppies: Elegies as well as a chapbook, Living Room, and two middle-grade novels. In Concertina, Leslie Schultz pays homage to her family, friends, mentors, peers and vocation as a poet. The tone is intimate, yet the poems extend to all of us. Many are sonnets, a form she knows well—she gets in, gets out, dazzles us with her language, insights, and images, yet keeps us tethered to where we are. There is a strong narrative element running through “Tap Root,” a “crown” of 18 sonnets at the heart of the book, yet each one is its own lens through which to view the life and legacy of the poet’s great-great-grandfather, to whom the sequence is dedicated. The poems are linked so convincingly that it seems as if this might be the only appropriate form in which to present this thoughtful, stirring elegy. Had Bach returned to us in this time and place, and decided to write poetry, maybe Concertina would be what he’d produce.

The Laureate Writer’s Series is sponsored by the City of Winona’s Fine Arts Commission. The City of Winona is a partner of River Arts Alliance.