During my ridiculously lucky 3-night residency in Miami last week–praise to SWWIM and the Betsy Writer’s Room!–I worked on a multipart poem I started in October. The sequence begins by conjuring a tiny land snail. A brainstorm occurred to me on the sand, because in South Beach you’re basically obligated to do some of your thinking next to the Atlantic: hey, I should end the sequence with the Great Pink Sea Snail! As a seventies kid catching the 1967 movie Dr. Dolittle on TV once in a while, I adored the giant snail, which you may remember carries some of the characters back to England from Sea Star Island. Its watertight shell, pearly-pink inside, is the size of a small house, equipped with gauzy curtains and baskets of fruity refreshments. What a ride.
And wow, what a racist, sexist, bloated, boring film. I rewatched much of it, often on fast-forward because it’s painful in every way possible. I also went down the internet rabbit-hole to learn that Rex Harrison, whom my mother loved, was loathed by many who worked with him (the rudest, most selfish person they’d ever met, they say, and worse–it’s always worse). I’m guessing the Great Pink Sea Snail swam so fast mainly to get away from him.
I have some ideas about why the snail captured my imagination. My long-ago dissertation on U.S. women poets was called The Poetics of Enclosure, after all. I’m attracted to inward-turning spaces–like the lyric poem–that also, paradoxically, make room for big ideas, aspirations, and feelings. That gorgeous shell offers protection and secrecy while also enabling movement. I’m an introvert who loves to travel and connect in literary ways–core activities of my 2025–but who direly needs intervals to rest and recharge, no talking, please.
I’ve retreated to my lair since returning from Miami, doing a little writing and lots of reading, but also decorating the mantel with evergreens and mixing up the Christmas pudding to age in the fridge (truly, age makes many things better). A year that has been so terrible for the U.S. and the world has been weirdly good to me. The sciatica pain that kicked off in March and lasted months was the worst I’ve ever had, and I hated having so much difficulty walking. That means, though, that I’m vividly grateful to be mobile now. I’m happy that I did a fine job launching Mycocosmic (this time last year I was a nervous wreck). I can afford some salary reduction to take a full year sabbatical, now only half over–how lucky is that? I signed with a literary agent (!) and gave my novel a few hard overhauls, with results I feel good about. I remain worried about a few people I love, uncertain about some of the work I’m trying to do, and freaked out about the big catastrophes, like any sentient being on the cusp of 2026. Yet again, for me, the new year seems like it will bring gifts as well as anxieties.
I’ll circle back around new year’s with my 2025 reading list. In the meantime, some recent presents from the universe:
- A newly posted interview: Poetic Ecologies: A Conversation Between Jane Satterfield and Lesley Wheeler, in New Verse Review. It’s always fun to talk to Jane not just because she’s a great poet and reader but because, as people who grew up in the U.S. with mothers from the U.K., we literally speak the same language, understanding each other’s idioms. It’s both exciting and somehow restful. I’m always translating, otherwise, because what leaps to my tongue sounds peculiar to people on both sides of the Atlantic.
- The weather, thinking time, and food in Miami delighted me, but so did the evening of the reading. For example, I’ve been a fan of Denise Duhamel’s poetry for years, even writing about her collaborations with Maureen Seaton in a scholarly book. She generously blurbed Mycocosmic and attended my reading at the Betsy! I also had the pleasure of meeting long-time virtual friend Julie Marie Wade in person. She’s just as I expected from her terrific poems and essays: a warmly enthusiastic person who gives the impression of being extra alive.
- Big congratulations to everyone involved in Shenandoah’s terrific new issue. I was only involved in this one as partial proofreader, but I’m dazzled by Tran Tran’s guest portfolio of multilingual poetry. My spouse Chris Gavaler chose some especially eerie comics, and the essays curated by DW McKinney are really staying with me. Nadeen Kharputly conducted an extraordinary interview for this issue with Virginia’s incoming Lt Governor Ghazala Hashmi that crisscrosses between politics and literature. Sarah Audsley likewise covers amazing ground in her interview with featured artist Kristen Mills: these interdisciplinary conversations are always thought-provoking. I’m onto the guest-edited fiction next.
Wishing everyone some peace and light this season.
LESLEY WHEELER 