LESLEY WHEELER

Author: Lesley Wheeler

  • Rustle like old women’s laughter

    Rustle like old women’s laughter

    This week, in my “Modern Poetry’s Media” course, I told my undergrads about poet Helene Johnson‘s success during the Harlem Renaissance, subsequent disappearance from the literary scene, and rediscovery late in the 20th century. “Rediscovery” is a funny term, of course–she knew where she was the whole time, although other poets and the critics weren’t…

  • Mycocosmic is in the field

    Mycocosmic is in the field

    My book-spore have been released! Like all wild things, they’re not as calendar-driven in their dispersal as an author might pretend. Tupelo people and I agreed that the official launch date would be March 4th because Tuesdays are traditional in the industry and “march forth” sounds cute–that’s when the local party happens (Downtown Books, Lexington…

  • In which I deploy a questionable surfing metaphor

    In which I deploy a questionable surfing metaphor

    I’m a melodramatic soul, but I suspect myself of particularly flamboyant hyperbole when I find myself wondering if this is one of the most important seasons of my life, career-wise. (I’d put, for example, becoming a parent ahead of it on the Actual Major Life Change list). Lightning has struck before, for example through a…

  • Myco-local

    Myco-local

    Two weeks till Mycocosmic launches! In the meantime, I snuck in a four-hour Sunday workshop run by two mycocologists and foragers about an hour away in Churchville, Virginia. They stuffed my head full of information and my body full of mushroom soup, mushroom hand pies, and pieces of shiitake, maitake, and lion’s mane sauteed in…

  • Best American, lit mags, and the merry-go-round

    Best American, lit mags, and the merry-go-round

    I’m now allowed to announce that my poem “Sex Talk” will appear in Best American Poetry 2025, chosen by Terence Winch. I had absolutely no idea it was under consideration and have never been in one of these anthologies before–didn’t think I ever would be. The December email from Mark Bibbins was a bolt out…

  • Tender and furious

    Tender and furious

    A friend sends me haiku most days, under the rule that I don’t comment on them because I do that for a living and it can wear me out–it’s a pleasure to just watch them float by. One of the latest was addressed to a black widow living near his bed, informing it that he…

  • Fruiting the substrate

    Fruiting the substrate

    Publishing a poetry book involves nourishing your work in what may feel like darkness, growing networks. It can take a long time until the mushroom-poems themselves burst into the light. And who knows if people will find them, devour them, and find them tasty. Am I taking this metaphor a little far for you? Too…

  • 2024 in reading

    2024 in reading

    Pictured above are four strong new poetry books I read during the time-out-of-time between Christmas and New Year’s. Television Fathers by Sylvia Jones, a former Shenandoah Editorial Fellow, stretches the boundaries of the poetic in surreal and striking ways, often by deploying ekphrasis. In Rough, there’s lots of powerful ekphrasis too, but what stays with…

  • Comics, newsreels, retrospectives

    Comics, newsreels, retrospectives

    A comic in a blog can have a filmic quality–you scroll down through image after image, with screen light shining behind them. This week I’m delighted to show you Chris Gavaler’s comic “Rhapsomantic” based on my poem “Rhapsodomancy,” a poem from my forthcoming book Mycocosmic. (Text-only version here, in ASP Review). He and I consulted…

  • Myco-comic for Mycocosmic

    Myco-comic for Mycocosmic

    My spouse Chris Gavaler is a comics scholar and creative writer who does crazy things with Microsoft Paint, an old graphics editor that’s supposed to be very limited but which he keeps inventive finding ways to redeploy. He’s also on sabbatical and just finished taking a drawing class that developed his visual arts skills. One…