LESLEY WHEELER

Category: The State She’s In

  • Virtual launches and figuring out how to help

    When my students asked me last week–during our final in-person classes, as it turns out–how I thought the virus would develop or whether W&L would switch to online instruction soon, I offered guesses with the caveat, “But I’m not an authority on this. My thoughts about poetry are worth something; otherwise I’m just an average…

  • #Virtualbookfair, disappointment, little gifts

    This week has been a bummer. I voted for Elizabeth Warren, whom I love love love but who did poorly across the country in Super Tuesday. It’s been clear for many weeks that she wasn’t going to win, so I’m more resigned than some to this country being a sexist retrograde mess, but still… I’m…

  • Pre-conference quiz

    1. I am attending AWP 2020 because: a. I am legitimately excited about sharing my book, seeing literary friends, and hearing strong writers talk about what they do b. As a former board member amazed I ever carried that load, I’m glad to support the current board members and the organization’s great new leaders, all…

  • Poetry and heart

    I looked up “heart” and found definitions including feeling, courage, enthusiasm, vital part, “the condition of agricultural land as regards fertility,” personality, disposition, compassion, generosity, character, charity, humanity, and of course love. It has associations with memory, too (“by heart”) and deep concern (“to heart”). Obsolete: intellect, which is pretty much the opposite of what…

  • Still at the Egg-life–

    I’m dormant these days, sometimes “chafing the shell,” as Dickinson wrote, but also conserving energy and trying to stay focused. Some hibernaculum thoughts: I clearly know nothing about words or publishing, because I posted my most popular tweet ever this week and it was about…boots. Success, if that’s what that is, isn’t always confidence-inspiring. I…

  • She’s in a state, all right

    THIS is the best thing about this week: a stunning cover for my forthcoming poetry book, featuring a painting called “Censer” by Ida Floreak and designed by Nikkita Colhoon. Nikkita’s work was one of the draws, for me, in working with Tinderbox Editions–all her covers stop you in your tracks. I feel really lucky. I…

  • Not resolutions but invocations

    Last year, I substituted a mantra for a resolution: “breathe.” It helped a little. This New Year’s Eve I wrote up more resolutions, got upset about them, and then decided: to hell with self-improvement. I need fewer bullet points on my endlessly guilty, mildly self-loathing to-do lists. And better ones. In fact, let’s not even…

  • Copy-editing and fact-checking poems

    As the New York Times reports, we’re seeing industry-wide hand-wringing right now about how rarely books are fact-checked, following scandals involving Naomi Wolff and others. I’m proud that Shenandoah editor Beth Staples makes fact-checking a priority: the interns comb through every piece we publish, following up on names, dates, and a host of other check-able…

  • Live from the surface of the moon

    Live From the Surface of the Moon     The landing leg (porch) jets a web of shadows across lunar powder while brilliantly bleached astronauts lope across the frame   On Sunday July 20th 1969 I am not yet two : : do not divine how the moon mirrors the sun and the magnificent desolation…

  • Work: 25 notions & reveries

    This is my twenty-fifth fall teaching poetry at my first real job, at a liberal arts college in Virginia. I never thought I would stay this long. When I arrived, I was twenty-six with a new PhD and limited experience. A bunch of publications and a bazillion classes later, I am a better teacher, scholar,…