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The knife
At one of the many events I attended this fall, a magazine editor, reflecting on downsides of a generally rewarding job, sighed and said something like “so many bad poems.” What’s hardest for me about selecting poems for Shenandoah is how many good poems I receive, way more than I can accept, given a limited…
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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…
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The impossibility of finishing anything
You can’t “finish” any writing task, or so I tell my students and myself. Revising and proofreading are crucial, and if it’s high-stakes writing, you should make time to do that repeatedly, but at some point you just have to call it quits. There’s no such thing as perfection. Knowing that, I still feel incredibly…
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Don’t read this if you’re focusing on gratitude
As I slice sweet potatoes and cube challah bread for stuffing, I’m feeling not grateful or festive but sick at heart about two things: the injustice at Standing Rock, and what this election is going to mean for my children’s generation. I am fortunate to have my daughter home from college and a visiting cousin…
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“Douchebag” and other rude, not-seasonally-festive epithets
The one time I tried to smoke a cigarette, my friends mocked me: “Cut that out. You look totally ridiculous.” By common consensus, I couldn’t pull off foul language either. I thought the problem might have been some crisp Englishness lingering in my elocution—my mother’s British and allegedly I started kindergarten with an accent. I…
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LESLEY WHEELER 