Susan Wheeler

Susan Wheeler Poems

Susan Wheeler Biography

Susan Wheeler (born July 16, 1955) is an educator and award-winning poet whose poems have frequently appeared in anthologies. She is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Princeton University. She has also taught at University of Iowa, NYU, Rutgers, Columbia University and The New School. Wheeler was born in Pittsburgh and grew up throughout Minnesota and New England. She received a BA from Bennington College in 1977 and pursued graduate studies in art history at the University of Chicago between 1979 and 1981. Wheeler was the first example of an Elliptical Poet described by Stephen Burt in his creation of the term in 1998. and expanded upon in an eponymous essay in American Letters & Commentary. Her work is also referred to in Jed Rasula's Syncopations: The Stress of Innovation in Contemporary American Poetry.)

The Best Poem Of Susan Wheeler

Alphabet's End

So I'll speak ill of the dead. A was crooked,
planting the small left finger of the raccoon in the upholstery
before he sold the car. B made certain to point out Celia's
bewildered look before her pink slip came in the flimsy institution.
In the videos of C, a jejune overwhelmed the cast.

D built dollhouses. Even Lonnie down at Shell
found him less a man for it, the night they went off to see the stock
cars break. I wanted E's hair, but by the end it was no more. F
refused alms, pulling the man up by his shirt in the street, and
G sought rewards. Marybeth said H fondled her for sport.

Now you, I, Smokey, hell
bent on a village version of Club 21, embarrassed by our attentions.
Mistrust it was. Dig me a chamber of preparedness.

Susan Wheeler Comments