LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: Massachusetts Review

  • Women working

    Women working

    During a recent quick trip to Toronto–my spouse had conference funding so I tagged along–I did a lot of museum-going. Several days and a hellish Air Canada odyssey later, what stays with me most is an exhibit in the Art Gallery of Ontario. It paired two women impressionists: the famous Mary Cassatt with a Canadian…

  • H.D. and my owlish, Fool-ish life

    H.D. and my owlish, Fool-ish life

    It’s funny what you find in a literary archive–less than you expect, and more. Since I last posted, I spent nearly a week reading the poet H.D.’s papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale, then another week-plus sorting through my notes and beginning to draft an experimentally shaped essay on her use of the Tarot…

  • It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall

    …The dark threw its patches down upon me also, Walt Whitman wrote in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Nearly as often as he reflects on his own tingling senses, Whitman, it turns out, writes about distance and solitude, sometimes expressing pain about it and reaching for touch across impossible gaps. “It avails not, time nor place–distance avails…

  • Looking off cliffs

    I’m not processing very well, here at the quiet edge of apocalypse. Sometimes I’m fine, scared, down, or stir-crazy; often I’m busy teaching remotely, being fortunate enough to still have a job; generally I can’t concentrate. New York City has always been the center of the world for me; how will it fare? When will…

  • Birthday-head

    Should I wear the top hat or tiara while teaching Yeats tomorrow? Poe thinks it’s a stupid question. People keep asking me how I feel about turning fifty tomorrow. One answer is: lucky. I’m back in the swing of teaching after a difficult summer, and I find it as rewarding as ever. My spouse and…