{"id":1379,"date":"2017-05-26T17:33:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T17:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/?post_type=product&#038;p=1379"},"modified":"2024-01-12T05:40:49","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T05:40:49","slug":"radioland-lesley-wheeler","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/product\/radioland-lesley-wheeler\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Radioland<\/em>, Lesley Wheeler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lesley Wheeler\u2019s <em>Radioland<\/em> is a spellbinding examination of communication breakdown in all its guises. With seismic heft, Wheeler mines the metaphoric capabilities of tectonic shifts and fault lines, slurred pop lyrics, and the lexicon of new technologies. Throughout, a father\u2019s inscrutability translates into the nonsensical garble and static of old radios. Wheeler\u2019s keen focus on linguistic obfuscations plays in the key of Williams, specifically: It is hard to get the news from poetry. With a flair for received forms and an exacting ear, Wheeler has her finger on the pulse of all that stands in the way of straightforward transmissions, not only of the other but of the self. Wheeler\u2019s facility for naming what doesn\u2019t get said is nothing less than stunning.<br \/>\n\u2014Martha Silano<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Lesley Wheeler\u2019s new volume of poems, <em>Radioland<\/em>, spellbinds with the gorgeous sounds of its poetry: \u201cDrag belly over gravel on a cave-lip \/ into the TV and sleep in it,\u201d one poem opens. Note the insouciant forging of ancient and quotidian scenes, the modulation of vowels punctuated by <em>v<\/em>\u2019s: I\u2019m hooked! Wheeler is, among other glories, a consummate formalist, but she is also profound in her exploration of the governing trope of this collection: the deeply human struggles in which families engage to be receptors and transmitters of love (the crisis brought to a head by the unforgiven father\u2019s death). In <em>Radioland\u2019s<\/em> disturbed emissions and reception, we cannot always tell what\u2019s \u201c[s]ignal and noise,\u201d but at the borderland to the absolute, Wheeler is surefooted in her exploration of love\u2019s echoing \u201cparley\u201d in the world.<br \/>\n\u2014Cynthia Hogue<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As for Twitter, no one\u2019s ever home. Birdsong\/as data, territory marked with light.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 <a class=\"twitter-share-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" data-size=\"large\" data-text=\"&quot;As for Twitter, no one\u2019s ever home. Birdsong\/as data, territory marked with light.&quot;\" data-url=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2sPOwXm\" data-via=\"BarrowStreetInc\" data-show-count=\"false\">Tweet<\/a><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Reception\u2019s a religion when\/everything whispers&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 <a class=\"twitter-share-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" data-size=\"large\" data-text=\"&quot;Reception\u2019s a religion when\/everything whispers&quot;\" data-url=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2sPOwXm\" data-via=\"BarrowStreetInc\" data-show-count=\"false\">Tweet<\/a><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><code><\/code><br \/>\n<strong>Bequest<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One door is the will. It leaves you<br \/>\nnothing, not even your name<br \/>\nin the count of surviving children.<\/p>\n<p>One door is a folded standard<br \/>\nthe honor guard hands his widow, next<br \/>\nof kin, no kin to you. It\u2019s only cotton<\/p>\n<p>but weighed down with stars. My father once<br \/>\ncarved a M\u00f6bius band in wood, a triangle<br \/>\nwith rounded corners and one continuous<\/p>\n<p>surface. He gave it to me, or I took it, I can\u2019t<br \/>\nremember. Its impossible interior<br \/>\na portal. A book is always a door:<\/p>\n<p>his Bible, inscribed <em>First Reformed<br \/>\nSunday School, Brooklyn, 1934<\/em>.<br \/>\nBehind the title, in boyish pencil,<\/p>\n<p><em>Job 19:21 skin of teeth<\/em>.<br \/>\nIn fact, that\u2019s 19:20, news of escape.<br \/>\n21 implores, <em>Have pity upon me, O ye<\/em><\/p>\n<p>my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.<br \/>\nA threshold where I pause and think, be<br \/>\nempty. Your inheritance is dead air. Receive<\/p>\n<p>without refraction the heaviness of vacancy.<br \/>\nTrace with your finger its curious property<br \/>\nof one-sidedness. Souvenir of the twist.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><em>Applicable bookseller\/retail discount on bulk orders of 10+ copies automatically applied at checkout.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[20],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1379","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-poetry","8":"first","9":"instock","10":"shipping-taxable","11":"purchasable","12":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/1379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrowstreet.org\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}