Heathen

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.