LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: books

  • 2024 in reading

    2024 in reading

    Pictured above are four strong new poetry books I read during the time-out-of-time between Christmas and New Year’s. Television Fathers by Sylvia Jones, a former Shenandoah Editorial Fellow, stretches the boundaries of the poetic in surreal and striking ways, often by deploying ekphrasis. In Rough, there’s lots of powerful ekphrasis too, but what stays with…

  • Shaky & a still life

    Shaky & a still life

    On election day, I taught a Zoom workshop to a small creative writing workshop at Western Washington State, with a focus on spell- and prayer-poems. The teacher and I thought hard about the timing and decided it would be a good distraction for us and them–and it sure was. I read some poems and answered…

  • Reading through change

    Reading through change

    I have zero plans for New Year’s Eve: I don’t care enough about the midnight moment to stay up past bedtime, plus we just returned from visiting my sister in Florida (my family of 4 in an economy car for 12 hours each way), and we’re all tired. But introspection IS my jam, so like…

  • Marginalia and interleavings

    When you read, you think someone else’s thoughts–which is why it’s interesting and good to read books by people whose experiences are different than yours. Sometimes, however, there’s an intermediary spirit in the mix. Pick up a heavily marked used book and you end up glimpsing another reader’s mental processes, too. Students experience this all…