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Do I contradict myself?–creatically crititive
The relationship between critical and creative practice is: Chalk and cheese, apples and oranges, oil and water: i.e. recipe for a bellyache A tricky but fruitful alternation with, at best, one kind of labor generating ideas and energy for the other [Insert metaphor for fatal competition here—“Two Cats of Kilkenny” comes to mind] Identical—there is…
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Doctored
The latest Wheeler-Gavaler time-travel expedition: a Virginia bed and breakfast presided over by a former patient of Dr. William Carlos Williams. Ten or twelve years ago, my mom came to stay with the kids as Chris and I, feeling desperate from too much work and too much toddler-chasing, retreated to Warm Springs for a weekend.…
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Pound, Eliot, and vintage radios
I’m between stations with a head full of static. I just finished teaching–submitted my last grade, for an honors thesis on Wallace Stevens–but my sabbatical doesn’t officially begin until July 1. I’m also signing off on an interim year as Department Head, and the final hours involve an unbelievable amount of writing. The letters for…
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Memorializing enslaved people at Washington and Lee
My seriously talented students are justifiably proud of their liberal arts college. The academic opportunities are excellent. Professors are dedicated to working closely with undergraduates in small classes and frequent office hours. The campus itself is lovely, staffed by friendly people, set in a charming small town, and surrounded by soft blue mountains. So the…
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AWP Haiku
Note to future self:/ skip panels on publishing/ and self-promotion. I used to wonder/ how to break in. Now I want/ to write good. Backwards? Rita Dove talking/ about anything is worth/ ten hummus buffets. That’s as far as I got with seventeen-syllable crystallizations of my experience at this year’s annual meeting of the Association…
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Teaching Claudia Rankine’s Citizen
Teaching a single-author poetry book is a different enterprise than assigning poems from an anthology. There’s a lot more information to sift and process: the future greatest hits are interspersed with poems that may be harder to absorb; ordering, epigraphs, and subsections suggest new meanings; there’s an arc to read for, a set of through-lines…
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Intention / haplessness
As usual, I’m tripping over my own sleepy feet into National Poetry Month, knowing I should have a WRITING PLAN but instead feeling indecisive, half-awake. April is when W&L’s winter term ends in a flurry of meetings, receptions, and papers; exam week and spring break, which are relatively calm, occupy the middle; and by the…
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Postcard for Jean
Today I’m thinking of my much-loved Aunt Jean, who died at her home in England this morning. I came to know her best in 1988, when I stayed with Jean, my Uncle Pete, and my cousin Nigel in Cyprus for three weeks. I was studying abroad at the University of Southampton and, during a long…
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Lucidity, difficulty
As a grader of zillions of undergraduate essays, I hate the word “relatable.” I never let “universal” sneak through a poetry class without interrogation. I understand why some critics mock the word “accessible,” as if poems could be built to code with wide ramps and handrails. Relatable to whom? People don’t have equally easy entry…
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The important stuff
On Thursday afternoon of last week I thought I’d organized all my obstreperous administrative ducklings into a row and marched them off into a soft-focus sunset. Or, if that metaphor isn’t working for you, you could say I was heading into Washington and Lee’s weeklong break with a clear desk and a nearly-empty email box,…
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LESLEY WHEELER 