LESLEY WHEELER

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  • Itinerant Poet with Toadstools, Witches, & Shame

    Itinerant Poet with Toadstools, Witches, & Shame

    Mycocosmic is now three months old. Since it sprouted, I’ve done twenty events, recorded a few podcasts, received some nice notice (here’s the latest lovely review, by K.B. Kinkel). Meanwhile I taught very-full-time and kept working to set up summer and fall events, although they’re scheduled more calmly. “How are you feeling about the launch?”…

  • Dark corridors

    Dark corridors

    For the past few years, I’ve thought of this time of year as a lightless tunnel: from late April, when my mother died in pain, till Mother’s Day, after which grief shrinks back to a manageable size. This year, I see my sister suffering through this passage, but somehow I’m okay. Maybe it’s because I’ve…

  • Shimmer, steam, somatic, sciatica

    Shimmer, steam, somatic, sciatica

    A happy thing that happened a week ago Monday, the day before my Personal Pinched-Nerve Apocalypse (more on that soon). Adroit published my short essay “Mycelial Mind.” As far as maintaining the mental habits the essay describes: well, I’m still a seeker, and I guess that’s the point. The past week and a half brought…

  • Role model, mycelium

    Role model, mycelium

    Spring’s little revolutions are flaring in small-town Virginia. It’s been unseasonably warm, so on the streets around my house, the daffodils’ signage was rapidly outshouted by tulips, azaleas, and lilacs. We took a couple of walks in the woods, one at Brushy Hill where redbuds headlined, the other on back campus, where the news included…

  • Rustle like old women’s laughter

    Rustle like old women’s laughter

    This week, in my “Modern Poetry’s Media” course, I told my undergrads about poet Helene Johnson‘s success during the Harlem Renaissance, subsequent disappearance from the literary scene, and rediscovery late in the 20th century. “Rediscovery” is a funny term, of course–she knew where she was the whole time, although other poets and the critics weren’t…

  • Mycocosmic is in the field

    Mycocosmic is in the field

    My book-spore have been released! Like all wild things, they’re not as calendar-driven in their dispersal as an author might pretend. Tupelo people and I agreed that the official launch date would be March 4th because Tuesdays are traditional in the industry and “march forth” sounds cute–that’s when the local party happens (Downtown Books, Lexington…

  • In which I deploy a questionable surfing metaphor

    In which I deploy a questionable surfing metaphor

    I’m a melodramatic soul, but I suspect myself of particularly flamboyant hyperbole when I find myself wondering if this is one of the most important seasons of my life, career-wise. (I’d put, for example, becoming a parent ahead of it on the Actual Major Life Change list). Lightning has struck before, for example through a…

  • 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…

  • Fruiting the substrate

    Fruiting the substrate

    Publishing a poetry book involves nourishing your work in what may feel like darkness, growing networks. It can take a long time until the mushroom-poems themselves burst into the light. And who knows if people will find them, devour them, and find them tasty. Am I taking this metaphor a little far for you? Too…

  • Comics, newsreels, retrospectives

    Comics, newsreels, retrospectives

    A comic in a blog can have a filmic quality–you scroll down through image after image, with screen light shining behind them. This week I’m delighted to show you Chris Gavaler’s comic “Rhapsomantic” based on my poem “Rhapsodomancy,” a poem from my forthcoming book Mycocosmic. (Text-only version here, in ASP Review). He and I consulted…