LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: poetry daily

  • In which the perverse poet is chuffed about rejection

    Despite the frigid temperatures, my winter so far has been poetically electric. My long-awaited chapbook arrived in early December, then several journals containing a poem or two of mine suddenly went live or hit print (here’s one), PLUS Poetry Daily honored me with a New Year’s Day feature, PLUS Amy Lemmon and Sarah Freligh at…

  • Respect in classrooms vs. crap outside them

    Guys yelled slurs and catcalls from fraternity porches and dorm windows. At Rutgers in the late 80s, walking to class could be an ordeal, so one of the first things I learned at college was how to disappear behind an armor of apparent indifference. I often arrived at lectures and seminars demoralized, and sometimes what…

  • The Unbeliever Takes a Hike

    The Unbeliever Takes a Hike Winter is a cracked path, all the plush of moss and needles, mulch and soil swept away by the god of water. I have no choice but to sit down or follow it, so I follow, day after heathen day, sometimes watching my feet lest I trip on an exposed…

  • Remembering, foreseeing, and missing the Pacific

    Three years ago, the flurry of Christmas was eclipsed by a blizzard of planning for a Fulbright fellowship. In January 2011, Chris, Madeleine, Cameron, and I departed for Wellington, New Zealand for nearly six bracing, gusty, exhilarating months. We arrived at our Cuba Street hotel on an overcast summer day. My photo album also documents…

  • Poetic karma

    I’m sure I’m doing a horrible disservice to an important theological concept by throwing around the phase above. I understand karma itself only in a pop-cultural way—the idea that you reap what you sow, even if not right away, not obviously. Here’s what I mean by hitching it to the adjective “poetic.” I fervently hope…