LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: walking

  • Nuts raining down

    Nuts raining down

    I needed to get out into the woods, but between sciatica and recovering from the sprained ankle, it’s been hard to plan, or for that matter to pick a trail that hits my sweet spot between genuinely peaceful and not-too-rugged. Yesterday my spouse remembered Reservoir Hollow. It’s an obscure out-and-back trail a 15-minute drive away,…

  • Poetic feet [sprained]

    Poetic feet [sprained]

    I visited my sister in NJ a little over a week ago–just before a few days’ vacation with my eldest child–and my sister was bruised and scraped from falling during a run. I, meanwhile, recently gave myself a sprained ankle by…walking on the beach? I have no idea, honestly. As a kid, I broke an…

  • Walking: a footnote

    Walking: a footnote

    I just finished “Traversals: A Folio on Walking,” guest-edited by Anna Maria Hong and Christine Hume for the summer 2023 issue of The Hopkins Review. Walking and poetry have so many intersections: they foster observation, thinking, feeling, and talking; prompt unexpected encounters; depend on rhythm; and sometimes resemble each other even structurally, because meditation and…

  • Lilacs, long poems, life transformations

    I’m at one of my academic year’s four hinges, less evenly-spaced than the solstices and equinoxes: the long winter term has ended, grades are in, and I’m gearing up for our May term, four intense weeks that conclude with graduation ceremonies. It’s a crazy time of year to attempt a poetry experiment: writing every day…

  • Refueling? Yeah, not so good at that

    Following a link in Marly Youmans’ blog a few weeks ago, I read an interview with Joss Whedon that stuck like beach sand to sunburn. He describes a work pattern of constant, compulsive production, often on multiple projects at once. Even in rare blocks of downtime his mantra is “fill the tanks, fill the tanks, fill the…