LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: poetry

  • Myco-outtakes

    Myco-outtakes

    First: the 75th anniversary double issue of Shenandoah launched this week! The website has been professionally redesigned, too (I’m so glad Beth secured funding for that just under the wire–universities are all belt-tightening now). I read and proofread the whole issue so I know for sure it’s terrific. I hope you’ll check it out. If…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Best American, lit mags, and the merry-go-round

    Best American, lit mags, and the merry-go-round

    I’m now allowed to announce that my poem “Sex Talk” will appear in Best American Poetry 2025, chosen by Terence Winch. I had absolutely no idea it was under consideration and have never been in one of these anthologies before–didn’t think I ever would be. The December email from Mark Bibbins was a bolt out…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Myco-comic for Mycocosmic

    Myco-comic for Mycocosmic

    My spouse Chris Gavaler is a comics scholar and creative writer who does crazy things with Microsoft Paint, an old graphics editor that’s supposed to be very limited but which he keeps inventive finding ways to redeploy. He’s also on sabbatical and just finished taking a drawing class that developed his visual arts skills. One…

  • Harvest (while still sowing)

    Harvest (while still sowing)

    I’ve always loved the idea of a harvest dinner with loved ones as the days get short–celebrating squash, apples, mushrooms, and whatever fall in the region dishes up–but the actuality can be difficult. When I was young, Thanksgivings leaned toward the terrible. My siblings and mother and I felt giddy in 2012 when my right-wing…

  • 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…