Wheeler, Susan 1955–

PERSONAL: Born July 16, 1955, in Pittsburgh, PA; daughter of Ray Barton and Grace Louise Wheeler; married Philip Furmanski, August 23, 1991; children: (stepchildren) Lisa, Jonathan. Education: Bennington College, B.A., 1977; University of Chicago, postgraduate work, 1979–81.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY.

CAREER: Writer, educator and poet. Art Institute of Chicago, director of public programs and information, 1981–85; freelance editor and writer, 1983–91; director of public affairs arts and sciences, New York University, 1989–95. Vermont Council on the Arts, CETA writer and instructor, 1977–78; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, instructor, 1984–85; Poets in Public Service, New York City, instructor, 1989–91; New School for Social Research, New York City, instructor, 1994–, core faculty member (SIC), MFA in creative writing program, 1996–; Rutgers University, instructor, 1995–96; New York University, instructor, 1997–98; Princeton University, visiting lecturer, 1999–; University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, visiting professor, 2000. Also taught at Columbia University. Worked for Interview magazine, organizing public events.

MEMBER: PEN, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, Poetry Project, Poets & Writers, National Writer's Union.

AWARDS, HONORS: Norma Farber First Book Award, Poetry Society of America, 1994, for Bag o' Diamonds; Pushcart Prize, 1994, 2000; Grolier award for poetry, 1987; Prize for Poetry, Roberts Foundation, 1988; Vermont Council of the Arts grantee, 1878–79; Fund for Poetry grantee, 1990; New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, 1993–95, 1997–99; Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, 1999; Winner, Boston Review poetry contest, 2003, for "The Debtor in the Convex Mirror"; Iowa Poetry Prize, 2004, for Ledger; Witter Bynner Prize, American Academy of Arts & Letters.

WRITINGS:

Bag o' Diamonds (poetry), University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 1993.

Smokes (poetry), Four Way Books (Marshfield, MA), 1998.

Source Codes, Salt Publishing (Cambridge, England), 2001.

Ledger (poetry), University of Iowa Press (Iowa City, IA), 2005.

Record Palace (novel), Graywolf Press (St. Paul, MN), 2005.

Contributor to anthologies and journals, including Christianity and Literature, The Best American Poetry, Extraordinary Tide, Roth's Poetry Annual, New Yorker, Witness, Chelsea, and Paris Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Susan Wheeler's first poetry collection, 1993's Bag o' Diamonds, "provides unfailingly adventurous poetry," according to Albert Mobilio of the Village Voice Literary Supplement. Displaying "limber intelligence and visual wit," and "with influences including John Berryman, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, and the Language poets," Wheeler "risks echoing everybody while sounding like no one," and "keeps the reader alert and tuned-in with kinetic, sharp-edged poems that rarely overstay their welcome."

Wheeler's second collection, 1998's Smokes, was described by a Publishers Weekly reviewer as "a dance of malapropism, jarring surrealist and pop imagery, violent pastiche and merciless non sequiturs." The reviewer also remarked that the book's "desire to astound, contort, pervert and yet sing at all turns makes it a singular delight."

A Publishers Weekly critic called Wheeler's third collection, Source Codes, an "important, limit-testing book," noting its sources as being divided between "Charles Bernstein in his loopy 'Nude Formalist' mode" and "the allusive grand style of the Bishop/Lowell/Berryman line."

Wheeler's fourth book of poetry, Ledger, "explores the intersection of culture, materialism, and art, mining economic, historical, and literary sources" noted E.M. Kaufman in the Library Journal. In poems that convey meaning as much by their seemingly erratic layout as through the words that comprise their bones and skin, Wheeler offers puns on the language of business, considerations of the way in which private selves intersect with business selves, and the ways in which business and economic concepts shape and direct our interactions with the world and each other, all the time under the pervasive influence of consumer culture. In "The Debtor in the Convex Mirror," which Kaufman called the "crown jewel" of the collection, Wheeler begins with a description of "The Moneylender and His Wife," the 1514 painting by Quentin Massys, then mingles descriptions of sixteenth-century Antwerp (where the painting originated) with descriptions of a modern drugstore where young girls steal magazines and lipstick, betrayed and discovered through the convex security mirror. The poem "does produce a unique, peculiar subjectivity that fugues around different kinds of debt—and guilt," observed a Publishers Weekly critic. D.H. Tracy, writing in Poetry, called Ledger a "spectacularly unfocused meditation on economy, property, commerce, and their intrusions into spheres where they have no natural jurisdiction."

Record Palace, Wheeler's debut novel, follows Cindy, a Californian studying art at the University of Chicago, as she navigates the world of Chicago jazz under the tutelage of larger-than-life ex-jazzman Acie Stevenson, aging proprietor of The Record Palace. A lifelong jazz fan who learned to appreciate it from her clarinetist father, Cindy would rather spend her days rummaging through Acie's cramped and unkempt, but thoroughly well-stocked, record store than pursuing her studies. Drawn to Acie's tragic story, Cindy returns again and again, until the mismatched pair of jazz enthusiasts finally forge a workable alliance. Meanwhile, Cindy develops an attraction to radio host and music reporter Harnett Mtukufu, who turns out to be Acie's ne'er-do-well son, better known as Bowtie. As she is drawn deeper into Bowtie's world, Cindy becomes involved in his schemes to sell art forgeries, and recognizes that some sketches in Acie's unsanitary bathroom are actually valuable originals by a prominent German artist. Meanwhile, Acie, enormously fat, glass eye intact, sexual dysfunction fully explored, reigns over his kingdom of sound and vinyl, jaded and impoverished, but at times even serene, surrounded by the music that defines his life and is all he needs to get by. "Atmosphere, music, and Chicago fill this novel to the top," remarked Nola Theiss in Kliatt. "Though the plot thins at times, the story soars in riffs of jazzy language," commented Carolyn Maddux in the Antioch Review. Amy Ford, writing in the Library Journal, noted: "The text is crisp and nuanced, with a syncopated, improvisational feel." Similarly, a Publishers Weekly critic explained that "shifting narrators allow Wheeler's feel for the subtle variations in vernacular to shine in this knotty but mesmerizing little novel." A Kirkus Reviews contributor concluded that the novel is "a lively intersection of art and music [that] evokes a lost age of a great city."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Antioch Review, summer, 2006, Carolyn Maddux, review of Record Palace, p. 576.

Booklist, April 1, 2005, Donna Seaman, review of Record Palace, p. 1346.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005, review of Record Palace, p. 317.

Kliatt, November, 2005, Nola Theiss, review of Record Palace, p. 19.

Library Journal, April 15, 2005, Amy Ford, review of Record Palace, p. 81; July 1, 2005, E.M. Kaufman, review of Ledger, p. 85.

Poetry, June, 2005, D.H. Tracy, "Ten Takes," review of Ledger, p. 255.

Publishers Weekly, May 25, 1998, review of Smokes, p. 86; March 26, 2001, review of Source Codes, p. 85; March 7, 2005, review of Ledger, p. 65; May 30, 2005, review of Record Palace, p. 39.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, April, 1994, Albert Mobilio, review of Bag o' Diamonds, p. 14.

ONLINE

Bomb Magazine, http://www.bombsite.com/ (November 12, 2006), Robert Polito, interview with Susan Wheeler.

Susan Wheeler Home Page, http://www.susanwheeler.net (November 12, 2006).