PRESIDENTS

Forthcoming from Solid Objects Press.

MEME

A book-length poem in three sections: the pattern of love established by family; the introjected parent; and a third section of lovers’ breakups. This poem is “pure poetic genius,” according to Mary Jo Bang. Rae Armantrout describes the book: “Wheeler has created a total (and to me terrifying) linguistic environment in which hell is the introjected voices of other people, the hungry ghosts of our recent past.” Short-listed for the National Book Award. University of Iowa Press.

ASSORTED POEMS

Assorted Poems is a generous selection from the first four books by one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary poetry, In Bag ‘o’ Diamonds, Smokes, Source Codes and Ledger, Susan Wheeler has established herself as a poet of rare gifts. Her work is allusive and searching, sweeping over time and place—from the art of the Northern Renaissance to corporate logos—observing and exploring everything with characteristic precision and intelligence. Assorted Poems is a vibrantly thoughtful and entertaining book, a must-read from a poet whom Harold Bloom has called “an exuberant, subtle, endlessly inventive original.” Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

RECORD PALACE

“Record Palace is an astonishment. Susan Wheeler’s deft touch and flawless ear have produced an irresistible work, both fresh and sage. — Toni Morrison. With prose that resembles the syncopated rhythms of jazz, Wheeler—-an award-winning poet—offers a stunning portrait of a woman searching for an identity in a city on the cusp of social and political change. “Wheeler’s seductively atmospheric first novel traces a nervy young woman’s odyssey to selfhood, evokes acute loneliness, measures out noirish suspense, interjects sly humor, and pays unabashed tribute to Chicago circa 1980, out-there jazz, and the compelling music of language.” — Booklist

LEDGER

A collection of poems on stewardship, poetry and the coming economic crisis of 2008, focused through the lenses of particular persons and settings. “Part narrative, part satire, part cri de coeur, Susan Wheeler’s densely wrought new poems are alternately hilarious and chilling in their power to evoke the terrible contradictions of daily life in our media-driven landscape. Wheeler is that rare thing among poets, a genuine cultural critic; her poems use image and allusion with such exactitude that we see the things around us—from pop tarts to polyvinyl toilet seats—as if for the first time. Ledger is a dazzling collection.” — Marjorie Perloff. University of Iowa Press.

SOURCE CODES

Published by SALT Publishing (UK and Australia) in 2001, Source Codes is out of print.

SMOKES

“Smokes contains elegies, poems of urban and domestic angst, laments, invectives, cakewalks, struts. It’s very much of the moment but it is also a deeply literary book—how could it not be? And its confident, rueful, and playful grasp of its tradition is eye-opening and, sardonic as it is, boisterous fun.” — Robert Hass, from the Afterword.

BAG ‘O’ DIAMONDS

Published by the University of Georgia Press in 1994, Bag ‘o’ Diamonds is out of print. For a hardcover edition copy, contact the author.