LESLEY WHEELER

Category: Poetry’s Possible Worlds

  • Poetic circuitry

    Poetic circuitry

    I just had tea with the lovely poet, person, and letterpress publisher Emily Hancock of St. Brigid Press. She’s planning an ecopoetry event at Stone Soup Books in Waynesboro, Virginia on September 13th, and I’ll be part of it, with Jeanne Larsen, Sarah Ann Winn, and, we hope, a relative of Karenne Wood to discuss…

  • Sneak preview of Poetry from the Underworld

    Sneak preview of Poetry from the Underworld

    A poem can call me into its little room, persuade me to pay attention to subjects I can’t bear to immerse myself in for hours or days.

  • Poetic feet [sprained]

    Poetic feet [sprained]

    I visited my sister in NJ a little over a week ago–just before a few days’ vacation with my eldest child–and my sister was bruised and scraped from falling during a run. I, meanwhile, recently gave myself a sprained ankle by…walking on the beach? I have no idea, honestly. As a kid, I broke an…

  • 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…

  • Magic reciprocity

    Magic reciprocity

    My two fall classes are a first-year writing seminar called “Other Worlds” and an advanced poetry class called “Haunted & Strange,” so as autumn starts, I’m feeling weird in a good way. I’m also reading Robert Duncan’s The H.D. Book, full of meditations on poetry’s magic and modernism’s intersections with the occult, and wow, I…

  • Beginning a hybrid project, anxiously

    Beginning a hybrid project, anxiously

    Anxiety, my medical people agreed about those heart palpitations I mentioned in my last post, then proceeded to treat me with pills, needles, and reminders about breathing techniques. Some combination of those is starting to help, as well as a three-day breather we just took at the beach, a landscape that seems to help me…

  • Spiral aboveground, mycelium beneath

    Spiral aboveground, mycelium beneath

    Sick for much of the last few weeks, I became a literary twister, pulling in a lot of reading and flinging out a few things, too. I’m not in poetry submission mode, except for a couple of residency applications. Instead, I’m occupying the quiet eye of a poetry storm by preparing a book for publication,…

  • The conference program and underprogram

    The conference program and underprogram

    Gregory Pardlo, paraphrased, from a staged conversation with Allison Joseph: I know I might sound like a hypocrite, but don’t worry about the prizes; there’s so much compromise and chance in the process. Just keep doing your thing and saying yes to opportunities. Conferences have a program and an underprogram. Between events I talk to…

  • Some indie books for your list

    Some indie books for your list

    This week in the U.S. academic calendar involves a lot of reflection on and (less rewardingly) grading of student writing. I always sift and contemplate of my own year’s work, too, looking over what I’ve read and written, considering what I want to do next, or do better. I wasn’t surprised to see poet-blogger Ann…

  • Alternate possible worlds of poetry scholarship

    Alternate possible worlds of poetry scholarship

    A quick postcard from Brooklyn and the annual Modernist Studies Association conference: hello! Having a great time! Wish you were here! The MSA was My Conference during the years in which I wrote my two wholly scholarly books. As a green assistant professor, I participated in a seminar on modernist women poets and made friends…