Bill Schmidtkunz
Contributed by Charlie Rossiter
Bill Schmidtkunz has been writing poems for a long time and in this new collection, he provides a good example of what poets do best: He looks closely at his life and tells us what he sees.
Back in his early 20s, after deciding college was not for him, Bill left his native Milwaukee and traveled the country. After a few years of restless searching, he eventually found his way to the Pacific Northwest, ultimately settling in Sutton where he now makes his home. This bit of biography is offered as context for better understanding the quiet, personal, reflective poems in this brief collection.
In an email, I asked Bill why the collection is called “lower case poetry”.
His response (all in lower case) provides a good look at what the poems are about:
“because of the type face, of course, but also i see there is a certain moodiness to the pieces as well. more than once i thought they were kinda dark - street people under bridges, finding refuge in churches, even john the baptist giving me a hard time. the bookends are fallen angel, which opens the "story” and ends with leaving fingerprints as some hopeful advice. your hieroglyphics leaving an ink-blown hand print on the ten thousand year sandstone cliff face.”
Two days later, he added:
“every time I read my stuff, i see other things. “lowercase poetry” might be something like a backwards pilgrimage. opening poem something of, “wow, how did i get here, what did i give up, does this have meaning, is the panhandler me?” to sitting on a roadside chair thinking, “i will survive all this.” it goes on to the patron saints and traveling a road though darkness. in “the harvest moon”, i'm trying to live my dreams, but the passing years may be taking them away from me. but this is where “we make it our own” brings it back to the beautiful earth. we recover in our relationships with others. there is salvation.”
Schmidtkunz notes that for public readings, he requests that the audience simply listen without outward response as he goes through the entire collection of poems; for although their content varies, the mood they create has a consistency about it that readily takes over the room.
An important goal of poetry is for the poet to show us his life and life in general, as he sees it. At this, Schmidtkunz succeeds admirably. This is a book for snuggling up and reading by the fire with that important other person in your life. It will help you focus on the bigger picture.
“lower case poetry” by William Schmidtkunz, Fox Point, WI: Distant Thunder Press, 2017, 16 pp. $10, paperback. Available from the author at P.O. Box 26, Sutton, Alaska, 99674.
*Charlie Rossiter of Bennington, VT, hosts the twice-monthly podcast series at www.poetryspokenhere.com, where he interviews poets who read from their work.
