Monthly Archives: December 2010

Sprung blurb #3

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Yeah! I’m so excited to receive my blurb from Cati Porter for Sprung forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press. Cati is the wonderful editor of Poemeleon, an online journal that has published several of my poems from this series. Both Cati and I had our chapbooks published in 2010 by Dancing Girl Press. I’ve ordered Cati’s (Al)most Delicious. I can’t wait for it to arrive! I’m currently reading her fantastic book, Seven Floors Up (2008) published by Mayapple Press. Here’s Cati:

Sprung is brimming with humor and intelligence as Wiseman’s characters pull us along with them on their escapades, telling the story of a couple from its beginnings in marching band where one promises and one is promised, “I’m going to be with you always,” tracking the arc of the relationship through to the inevitable break up. Straightforward enough? Then consider the fact that one of the pair is imaginary. Pulsing beneath the surface of this engaging story is a dialogue about gender and its relationship to the self, carefully teasing apart the culturally-imposed binary nature of gendered stereotypes and upending the notions of what is real and what is imaginary. Wiseman, the wise woman that she is, answers: “The imaginative world is the only real world after all.”

Thanks, Cati!

Sprung blurb #2

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Yeah! I’m so excited to receive my second blurb from Hadara Bar-Navda for Sprung forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press. When I was deciding where to do my PhD, I spoke with Hadara via email about the program here in Nebraska. When I came down to visit the campus that following spring and meet with faculty and graduate students, we met at Marilyn Chin‘s reading at the Great Plains Art Museum. A few years later, after Hadara had graduated she returned to speak about the job market and her experiences at her first job, a talk I’ve thought a good deal about in recent months as I continue my job search.

Hadara is an amazing poet. Her book A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight was selected by Kim Addonizio for the the IntuiT House Poetry Series, run by the editor Margie. When Margie accepted a poem of mine, I spoke with the editor, Robert Nazarene, on the phone. He asked me if I knew Hadara’s work. I said, “Of course!” I think that was shortly after her book came out. I’ve just started rereading her book. Her poems are so smart.

Here’s Hadara:

Laura Madeline Wiseman confronts taboos that have long preoccupied the human imagination in Sprung, her sexy and volatile debut collection of poetry. With razor-sharp wit, Wiseman places the body at center stage and examines its inextricable ties to systems of identity and power. The body itself comes to life—at once omnipotent and tragically impotent—and Wiseman fiercely calls it by its name. She gardens and does laundry with it, takes it to England on a crusade, joins a marching band, plays Santa, and seeks solace with it at a Humans Anonymous meeting. Wiseman’s poems wake us from the mind-numbing world of propriety and political correctness, and take us an exciting aesthetic and linguistic journey. Think of the bold, raw, sensual energies of Rachel Zucker, Nin Andrews, and Whitman spiked with a neo-feminist edge. In Wiseman’s Sprung, nothing is sacred, and no one is safe.

Thank you, Hadara!

pub news

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I just want to share some of my new poems online in the inaugural issue of The Bat Shat, Poemeleon‘s wonderful Prime Time issue (read Kelly Cherry, Molly Peacock, and Robert Pinsky), and Pebble Lake Review Fall/Winter 2010 Issue, which includes audio recordings of the reading their poems such as Oliver de la Paz. I do think I love hearing poets read their poems.

I also have poems in print in The Delinquent and Illya’s Honey and the anthology Multi Culti Mixterations: Playful and Profound Interpretations of Culture Through Haiku.

And a Sprung sneak peek: I’ve been talking to the amazing artist Lisa Link about having her work as the cover art of my book forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press. Yeah! More on that soon.

And finally, a thank you to all of you who’ve ordered a copy of Branding Girls from Finishing Line Press. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! If you haven’t reserved your copy yet, there’s still time. The pre-sale period runs until January 5, 2011.

Wishing you Happy Holidays!

Sprung’s first blurb

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I’ve just received my first blurb from Grace Bauer for Sprung, forthcoming from San Fransisco Bay Press next year. Grace is an amazing poet and teacher. The first poetry workshop I took at UNL was with Grace. For her class, rather than read a dozen or so poetry collections, she asked the students to read current issues of poetry journals, such as The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Fence, and Poetry, and write responses to the journal’s aesthetic. In class we would workshop poems and discuss the journal. The issue of Poetry I chose happened to be an issue that focused on humor. The following class, Grace also brought in an essay that discussed the use of humor by poets such as Denise Duhamel. I remember being fascinated, in part because I hadn’t really considered poetry as something that was funny or could be funny. Up to that point, I’d only brought serious poems to be workshopped.

Grace is the author of several chapbooks and two books, Beholding Eye and Retreats and Recognitions. Her books are wonderful, surprising, and indeed, humorous. She was also the editor for Prairie Schooner‘s baby-boomer issue. Her introduction is a must read. She’s a hoot at poetry readings. At the first reading I attended of hers, she wore a lapel pin crafted out of an old dial to a dishwasher (I think). I’ve just ordered her edited collection, Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum.

Here’s Grace on Sprung:

The series of poems that comprise Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Sprung feature an unlikely antagonist. Alter ego? Animus? Evil twin? Master manipulator? Muse? Imaginary friend? Or foe? Wiseman is a smart woman, a gutsy poet who seduces the reader with possibilities in this delightfully disturbing collection.

Thanks, Grace.

Branding Girls, thank you

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I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends. I’m very thankful to have them.

This is also a thank you to all the journals that originally published poems now collected in my forthcoming chapbook Branding Girls. Thank you:

Big Muddy, Concho River Review, Illuminations, The List Anthology, Margie, Mississippireview.com, MO: Writings from the River, On the Bus, Oracle, The Penwood Review, Poetry NZ, Spillway, Spirits, Talking River, Third Wednesday.