LESLEY WHEELER

Category: Poet-Thing

  • Still life with two relaxed superheroes and a sparkle pen

    Sometimes, if I wake up extra-early, I’ll make a pot of tea and read one of the many bound-to-be-good poetry books stacked on the cyborg (what we call the sideboard, for obscure reasons). This morning I read Diane Seuss’ Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and Girl. It’s full of elegy and ekphrasis, a very rich book…

  • Poetry and fake news

    I don’t think a poem can be true. I also recognize that when a writer works through something risky and important to her in a poem–when the stakes feel personal and significant, and language is used craftily to convey that cost–the end result is a more powerful poem. That paradox is at the heart of…

  • Amazing Poet-Thing #1 (2018, first series)

    Thing-Poet admits to moments of feeling like a geographically-isolated pariah wearing outdated costumes ill-fitted to her post-change, orange, lumpy physique. The cool poet-parties occur at League Headquarters far away, and she is not invited. So it was fun, this week, to give a talk and a reading at the first residency for the brand-new Randolph…