Category Archives: queen_praise

In a time when the struggles and hard-won achievements of our foremothers are in danger of being rolled back or forgotten, Laura Madeline Wiseman turns our attention to a literary and familial ancestor who, after her only child’s death, waved “Goodbye/to motherhood, to one kind of life” and “bowed in welcome to another.” Wiseman blends…

A collection of experimental forms—a telegraph poem, a poem with an algebraic equation as its refrain, and erasures of historical documents—intermingling with traditional forms (such as a fairy tale ghazal), these poems spin history with an imagination attune to the intrigue behind fact. Queen of the Platform will pull you into the political landscape of…

Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Queen of the Platform is not only full of the energy of immediacy, but also deep meditation on the material traces of her ancestry.  Sometimes exacting, sometimes provocative, but always bold—Wiseman’s poetry sharply observes the fabric of her characters’ lives. – Margo Taft Stever

With her graceful rhythmic flare, and real and imagined homey narrative, she presents upended views of the meaning of equality via the men around her suffragist ancestor in the time before women could vote… With Queen of the Platform, Wiseman suggests that there is a great man behind–and moreover, beside–each great woman… Wiseman challenges perceptions…