LESLEY WHEELER

Category: Shenandoah

  • Square coats: AWP & Shenandoah

    Square coats: AWP & Shenandoah

    Performances ahead: Now filing out of the auditorium for a while: AWP and Shenandoah. A friend of mine, describing a thorny family situation amid the hubbub of AWP’s Book Fair, tried to say, “I shouldn’t use scare quotes.” The phrase came out “square coats.” Square old me, standing there in my favorite velvet blazer–I hadn’t…

  • So many of us!

    Nudgers and shoversIn spite of ourselves.Our kind multiplies:We shall by morningInherit the earth.Our foot’s in the door. –“Mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath I reread Plath’s “Mushrooms” this week (plus a fun little article about it) as I nudged and shoved through a pile of deadlines. This included hurriedly writing a synopsis of my novel Grievous so…

  • Winter bongos

    Winter bongos

    Yesterday I drafted this blog from inside a very cold bongo drum. High winds rippled and banged our metal roof riotously: “Thumbing / the tin roof like a smoker who / cannot get the house to stay alight,” I wrote in Mycocosmic, in a poem about perimenopausal sleeplessness. Even though hot flashes are rare now,…

  • Arthur Sze’s mushrooms

    Arthur Sze’s mushrooms

    I planned to get my third novel started this January, and I have. I wasn’t far in, though, before my brain started playing hooky. Psst, Lesley, I have a poem idea for you. Poetry always seems to prefer a sidewise approach, when I’m looking the other way. There’s nothing to do but obey. Arthur Sze’s…

  • The Great Pink Sea Snail rides on

    The Great Pink Sea Snail rides on

    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…

  • The knife

    The knife

    At one of the many events I attended this fall, a magazine editor, reflecting on downsides of a generally rewarding job, sighed and said something like “so many bad poems.” What’s hardest for me about selecting poems for Shenandoah is how many good poems I receive, way more than I can accept, given a limited…

  • Washington-bound (the other one)

    Washington-bound (the other one)

    I’m packing now for 12 days in the Pacific northwest (not nearby Washington D.C., which essentially seems like Mordor now). Here’s the poetry part of my itinerary: I’m excited, not just about the barding around part but exploring unfamiliar scenery (the Olympic peninsula! temperate rain forest! mountain and Pacific views!)–and seeing friends. I’ll technically have…

  • Voices in my head

    Voices in my head

    I don’t know how to harmonize the jostling inner voices of the last few weeks into coherent prose, so here’s some cacophony.

  • Myco-outtakes

    Myco-outtakes

    First: the 75th anniversary double issue of Shenandoah launched this week! The website has been professionally redesigned, too (I’m so glad Beth secured funding for that just under the wire–universities are all belt-tightening now). I read and proofread the whole issue so I know for sure it’s terrific. I hope you’ll check it out. If…

  • 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…