Poetry. "In Lesley Wheeler's exquisite debut collection, HEATHEN, the otherworldly flit among the actual like imaginary chameleons in real gardens. The dwarves of Eden think it's a stable and refuse to touch the wine: 'Gah,' they cry, 'it's dung' ('Religious Education'). Marianne Moore, hired to teach typing at the Carlisle Indian School, feels 'false as a New World chameleon' and sows 'sedition' in the Business Department until it's closed down ('A Place for the Genuine'). And in the wondrously rhymed quatrains of the title poem, a son fits his ear to his mother's 'so that the god in your head can talk / to the god in mine. I hear a forest / creak like the binding of a book' ('Heathen'). Wheeler strikes an impossible balance between the wildly witty and tenderly elegant detail. Heathen is sheer magic"--Cynthia Hogue.

Author City: LEXINGTON, VA USA

Lesley Wheeler is the author of HETEROTOPIA, HEATHEN, Voicing American Poetry, and other books; she co-edited the anthology Letters to the World with Moira Richards and Rosemary Starace. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, Slate, and Prairie Schooner. She is Professor of English at Washington and Lee University and lives in Lexington, Virginia. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholar senior research grant to conduct research at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, during the 2010-11 academic year.