W&L professor, poet to host local book launch at Lexington bookstore

Washington & Lee University English professor Lesley Wheeler will hold a local launch for her new book of poetry, Mycocosmic, on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at Downtown Books in Lexington.

The event will feature readings from Wheeler and three W&L professors: Emmett Buckley, Leah Naomi Green and Seth Michelson.

Published by Tupelo Press, Mycocosmic focuses on the idea of fungi and bacteria and their roles in sustaining life on Earth. The poems emphasize topics of grief while calling for a transformation of sense of self. And the themes are channeled through various forms including free verse, litany, sonnets, the bref double, the golden shovel and the villanelle.

The book features an underpoem, a book-length essay in verse that runs along the bottom of each page and responds to the poems above it, a reference to the fungi beneath us that nourish and metabolize new life.

“Mycocosmic was inspired partly by my readings about fungi, mycelium and what’s often called the ‘wood wide web.’ We could all do better at recognizing how profoundly connected we are, sometimes in subterranean ways,” Wheeler said. “I also wrote many of these poems while grieving, thinking about how without fungi and bacteria, death would overwhelm the world. Fungi turn death into nourishment for new life — a beautiful idea I took to heart.”

Wheeler, who has her BA from Rutgers and a Ph.D. from Princeton, has been a member of the W&L faculty since 1994, teaching poetry from the 19th through the 21st centuries and creative writing.

She also serves as poetry editor of Shenandoah.