Laura Madeline Wiseman

As half-women, the mythical mermaids that swim and roll through the first third of Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Drink, call up the murky waters of teenage life. They are young women straddling two worlds, caught in the dreamy underwater quality of youth while looking forward to womanhood. The mermaids are “mercurial,” always on the verge of transformation in the same way teenagers exist in a constant state of flux, almost daily changing into new versions of themselves. They “change with the stories that change us” (“First Story”) and are capable of “unzipping the long, silky skirt of their tail” to step out into womanhood only to return to their tail and the sea (“The Switch”)....

Read the rest of my review of Drink at the Rhizomatic Ideas blog run by Zoetic Press.

I have also published an interview with Wiseman on mermaids, myth, and creative community.… (mais)

A finalist in four national contests, my chapbook, My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010), claims humor as the site for inquiry into the erotic body

“In her brilliant My Imaginary, sass and success, drag and heft come packaged in words that sway and tease, lift and laugh for our pleasure and sometimes pain. Who’s in charge here? we might wonder but the answer is always Laura Madeline Wiseman in her remarkable chapbook. Perfect.” Hilda Raz, author of Trans and All Odd and Splendid

“We might assume an imaginary…would prove provocative, but who knew it could be so funny? Spunky and heady, Laura Madeline Wiseman’s My Imaginary will excite you with a “slow touch of bliss.” Within poems and across the collection, Wiseman bounces between mind and body, stimulating us with playful rhythms and surprising twists of stereotype. My Imaginary is a great ride. And a fantastic read.” Christine Stewart-Nuñez, author of Postcard On Parchment… (mais)

Ghost Girl (Pudding House, 2010), explores memory loss and recovery after relocation. While many of the poems are traditional in form (villanelle, ekphrasis, prose, found), Ghost Girl reclaims the heroic journey as a female one.

“Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Ghost Girl chapbook collection is not for the faint of heart. These are alert, visceral works of imagination and true grit. Intelligent and sophisticated, Wiseman becomes the clear-eyed oracle for our contemporary culture. Ghost Girl is as much a metaphor for being present in our lives as it is a haunting presence in these unforgettable, sagacious poems.” Lana Hechtman Ayers, author of A New Red… (mais)