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Exploring the mercurial myths of mermaids, nautical lore of drift bottles, and unmapped beach parties at the Pacific, Drink (BlazeVOX) questions the changeable stories we tell of water, those connected to plane disappearances, downed ships, lost girls, and forgotten lives. Drink seeks to understand what terrorizes us, be they forgotten messages, murdered sisters, or women living in water.

Wake

Who is female death and how do we meet her? This new collection from Aldrich Press explores figures of lady-death such as Inanna, Persephone, and others where death is mother, sister, and girl. Wake traces such myths as the hero’s journey, a descent into and out of the underworld, and a return to the land of the living where monsters still chase us even after we return. It is a dark story, piercing and magical.

The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales

The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters lets girlhood hunger rove cupboards, blacktops, and playgrounds to find the sweetness we can cup with our hands—butterflies, marathon medals, the body of a telephoto lens. Illustrated by artist Lauren Rinaldi, these ten collected tales by Laura Madeline Wiseman show the strength of girls coming into their own.

Threnody

Threnody explores the figure of lady-death, an icon come to life in these poems about the death cart, the death kiss, and a narrative dance with death. This is a collection of linked micro fictions & vignettes. They read like prose poems, too, which is part of the beauty in them—these small works live in a liminal space, somehow between poetry and prose, but also an almost-dream state between life and death. Sometimes versus too.

The Bottle Opener

On a quaint vacation to the ocean, a Midwestern couple finds a drift bottle, and another, until there are dozens. Taking the mysterious messages home, they seek to break the codes, unaware of what such words will mean for them.

American Galactic

Opening with an epigraph from Charles Simic, “Lots of people around here have been taken for rides in UFOs, American Galactic, Laura Madeline Wiseman’s fourth full-length book of poetry, explores the sci-fi realm of Martians, crop circles, abductions, and how humans face an extraterrestrial invasion: “I don’t know/ what I’d do if Martians arrived at my door.” American Galactic charts the intergalactic tale right here at home. Find out about “The Left Boob of Largeness.” Learn “What do Martians Want.” Understand “Why not to Buy Martians Sundaes Topped with Cherries.” And ultimately enjoy these “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in this bold new book of sci-fi poetry.

Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience

In this campy, contemporary retelling of the Bluebeard myth, Laura Madeline Wiseman charts the love of three sisters who each marry the same man upon the demise of the sister who preceded her. Bluebeard is usually framed as a story of blood and gore, but Wiseman focuses on the love each of his unfortunate wives felt, the first blush of romance and young marriage, the complicated turns of mature desire and the past we bring into our present affections.

Spindrift

Launched into the underworld realms of sunken ships, myths, and mercurial pop cultural representations, Spindrift dives into waters where who we thought mermaids were wavers with possibilities, dangers, and hopes. Spindrift is a new chapbook from Dancing Girl Press.

Intimates and Fools

Coupling body art and poetry, Intimates and Fools intimates the complicating pairing of the female form and cultural notions of beauty while playfully seeking to bare and bear such burdens of their weight. Body art and illustrations by Sally Deskins.

Queen of the Platform

Queen of the Platform are poems are based on the life of Laura Madeline Wiseman’s great-great-great-grandmother, the nineteenth century lecturer, suffragist, and poet, Matilda Fletcher Wiseman (1842-1909) and the men in her life: her brother, a civil war solider who was later charged with murder, her first husband, a school teacher and a lawyer, and her second husband, a minister who became her agent. Like her seven brothers who served in the Civil War, Matilda chose the public sphere. After the death of her only child, Matilda joined the lecture circuit. She spoke to support herself and her first husband, until his death. On the stage she spoke among other lecturers of her time, such as Susan B. Anthony.

First Wife

First Wife (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013), a new chapbook from a micro feminist press, lets Lilith speak. "First Wife," writes Stirring, "not only offers a deep, dark reinvented modern classic of an powerful female (which is few and far between), but reminds us, with her colorful and rhythmic flair for detail and narrative between the lines, to look closer and with new eyes at our surroundings and to define ourselves."

Stranger Still

Stranger Still, is a new chapbook of the extraterrestrial kind from Finishing Line Press.

Men and Their Whims

Men and Their Whims explores the relationship between Matilda Fletcher and her younger brother, Geo. Geo served in the Illinois infantry during the Civil War, but his tour was brief due to an illness he contracted that left him partially deaf. He later married and had children, but his marriage was unstable, in part because he preferred the company of men and drink. Geo was charged with murder in 1905 and sentenced to life in the state prison in Joliet, IL. Matilda writes that Geo was jumped at a saloon. Somehow Spencer Post, one of the men involved and a friend of Geo’s, was stabbed. The injury hit Post’s femoral artery. He bled to death. Between 1905 and 1909, Matilda battled the Illinois court for Geo’s freedom and the charge of murder.

Women Write Resistance

The anthology Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013) views poetry as a transformative art. By deploying techniques to challenge narratives about violence against women and making alternatives to that violence visible, the over 100 women American poets in this anthology intervene in the ways gender violence is perceived in American culture. The critical introduction frames the intellectual work behind the building of the anthology by describing how poets break silence, disrupt narratives, and use strategic anger to resist for change. Poetry of resistance distinguishes itself by a persuasive rhetoric that asks readers to act. The anthology collects poems by Alicia Ostriker, Maureen Seaton, Judy Grahn, and many, many more.

Unclose the Door

The poems in Unclose the Door are based on the life of the nineteenth century lecturer, Matilda Fletcher (1842-1909). This letterpress book is published by a press in Illinois, the place Matilda lived and died. The press uses offset printing and hand-stitched binding in a limited edition press run that honors the creation of the book as an art form.

Sprung

A semi-finalist in a national contest and a full-length collection of poetry, Sprung, (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012) explores gendered narratives, letting imaginary friends speak. New Orleans Review calls Sprung poetry of “natural endurance and strategy.”

Farm Hands

Farm Hands (Gold Quoin Press, 2012) is a letterpress book published by a press in Peoria, Illinois. Gold Quoin Press used offset printing and a team of designers to produce this limited edition chapbook that honors the creation of book arts in all its forms.

She Who Loves Her Father

A national contest finalist, She Who Loves Her Father (Dancing Girl Press, 2012) follows the afterlife of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, while examining her love life, the power-play between siblings, and the burial rituals of her people--the art of preservation in tombs, crypts, vaults, and jars. Sphinxes, the Nile, pyramids, and Isis all make their appearance in this chapbook of poetry.

Branding Girls

Branding Girls delves into consumerism, brands, and advertising while using the ekphrasis to respond to contemporary women artists and their work. Finishing Line Press published this chapbook of poetry in 2011. Weave Magazine calls it "Evocative" and notes that "Branding Girls amuses, alarms, and ultimately affirms in its eloquent confrontation of female stereotypes."

Ghost Girl

A semi-finalist in a national contest, Ghost Girl (Pudding House Publications, 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.

My Imaginary

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

Projects

Les Femmes Folles 2014 Calendar

A calender featuring art by artists Jacqueline Bequette, Kelly Blevins, Liz Dittrick, Sally Deskins, Wanda Ewing, Bonnie Gloris, Amy Kollar Anderson, Rachel Mindrup, Kristin Pluhacek, Lauren Rinaldi, Megan Loudon Sanders, and Alessandra Sulpy with poetry by Laura Madeline Wiseman.

Broadside - The Pomegranate

A broadside published by Gold Quoin Press, a fine arts press in Peoria, Illinois. Gold Quoin Press used offset printing to produce this limited edition broadside that honors the creation of book arts in all its forms.

Broadside - The Disappearing

During an eight-week writing residency at the Prairie Center of the Arts, I collaborated with designer and photographer, Adam Wagler, to create a limited edition series of broadsides that combine poetry and photography. We did a press run of thirty five prints, seven of each broadside.

The Objects - Digital Poetry

A digital collaboration with graphic designer Adam Wagler that combines poetry, print, and new media including web, audio, and video. View the project here. The site is optimized for a touchscreen, check it out on your iPad.

Nebraska Poets Calendar 2012

My poem “Ten-Speed” is the poem for July in the 2012 Nebraska Poets Calendar by Black Star Press.

Broadside - The Whimsical

A broadside collaboration with artist Kate Renee Johnson that combines poetry and graphic acrylic paintings.

Anthologies

Laura Madeline Wiseman's poetry and prose collected in anthologies.

Recent Reviews

“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.” - Rhizomatic Ideas

“Drink is an incredible collection of heartbreaking imagery and mysterious fantasy. They blend together to create a powerful work that comments on a wide-scope of harsh realities of the human and female conditions.” – Blot Lit Reviews

“The act of writing is not typically viewed as an assertion of power or an articulation of authority. Putting pen to paper requires only a voice and an idea. However, the women included in this anthology do more than defy this long-entrenched logic…. the poems and poets included in Women Write Resistance work to display the activism of poetry and the power of the woman-poet.” - Poemeleon

“Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Wake…recall the moment when we might enter the world, begin to see differently, maybe want to take everything on, no longer naïve, a sad yet awakening moment in life, but not without humor. Such is this collection, as with Wiseman’s others, a page-turning ride of abstract and real, calling to the shifting reality and surreality of contemporary life, and also, with subtle feminist undertones, encouraging the reader to take action in their own life.” – Rhizomatic Ideas

“What Wiseman does so masterfully in this collection is pull her reader through the darkest of territories then offer redemption. Love really does save the day in Wake—not the obsessive love of Death, who wants to possess the speaker, but the kind of love that checks on someone during a road trip and urges someone to leave that attic door shut for good. The gift that Wiseman so generously gives her reader is the ability to walk with the dead while knowing that love returns us to life.” - New Orleans Review

“Wiseman invites the reader to climb into the cart of death to witness death’s work, to examine death in our daily lives, and to question why we fear the inevitable….Wiseman employs phrases like ‘dead center’ and ‘dead of night,’ which remind the reader that death is not only a part of us, but also a part of our language. As we ride with the lady to the end of the line, we find the speaker laughing. What else can we do in the face of death, but laugh?” – Mid-American Review

“In her latest collection, Wake, Laura Madeline Wiseman takes the reader on a wild gallop with the ladies of death in her exploration of the impermeable through a dark, splintered, and comedic labyrinth of the underworld and beyond.” – Valley Voices

“From mermaids to family chaos with language that bobs in and out of an ocean of beautiful disarray, Drink by Laura Madeline Wiseman (BlazeVOX, 2015), takes us through a journey of mystic and memory. To this reader, the first half of the book set us up for looking at the rest though the lens of a mermaid who has seen it all, with moments many can relate to that are deeply rooted in the lives of poverty and abuse, turning them into magical nuggets of grace and disaster. Drink brings us a raw depiction of home through the eyes of youth with mermaid wands and head lice, navigating through the shadows through the eyes of a lost girl. Wiseman successfully tackles the prose poem as the chosen from throughout the book, not only impressing readers with language, but with crafts(wo)manship delicate built to bring us these tales of water.” – Ty(po-e:tic)us

“Wiseman’s Wake…one of the most beautiful and comprehensive inquiries into death and existence since Emily Dickinson. Her allusions to real and fictional women of various strengths and weaknesses give the reader a sense of the pervasiveness of the issues and myths of female existence. Lady death does not just exist, but she is also the action of existing as a female. Women live in a world where we are constantly stripped of power and made into something mythic, like the lady death. Wiseman explores this idea and pushes us headlong into the underworld with her. And, in case you didn’t know, once you enter the underworld, you can never come out.” - Blot Lit Reviews

“What a gracious host to take the reader on an intimate journey through time and place that allows us to cry, cringe, laugh, and smile with the players in her collection. I found some characters identifiable just like the characters we love and hate in Jeanette Walls novel, The Glass Castle, but Wiseman delivers with more tenacity. I recommend you pick The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales up for a read that will make you want to read more of Laura Madeline Wiseman’s work.” - Blot Lit Reviews

“Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience offers a novel take on her trademark modernization of historical material. This stunning book-length sequence re-imagines the well-known Bluebeard myth, presenting readers with a provocative revision of this age-old story. Her expertly crafted collection takes a multi-perspectival approach as the book is narrated by each of three sisters, who one by one marry the same man after the demise of the wife who preceded her.” - American Microcreviews & Interviews

“Laura Madeline Wiseman’s poetry collection, Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience, published by Lavender Ink (2014), takes one of the most gruesome fairytales which teaches women that curiosity means death (literally), and turns it completely on its head. And what’s best about how she does that, is instead of only making the female character somehow “strong” or feisty or brave—like so many contemporary feminist re-envisionings of fairytales—she highlights the multiplicity and polyphony of the female characters in the original tale and presents female characters here that are fully realized and complex: sometimes troubled, sometimes angry, and possibly most importantly sometimes mindfully walking into situations where they know they might be hurt.” - Stirring

“The Martians serve as a lens through which American, or broader human, culture is critiqued and explored…But underneath the Martian trappings and Martian tourists and Martians in the hedgerows, Wiseman’s collection is underscored by an intense yearning for the red planet just beyond our own, a planet whose nearness has captured the imagination of humanity for centuries.” - Star*Line

“[In Queen of the Platform] Wiseman also uses telegrams, letters, journals and Fletcher’s books, combined with her poetic imagination, to evoke a linear timeline in 19th century America, a time when girls weren’t educated and to create a personality vivid on the page.” - Up the Staircase

“Playfulness and creativity abound in this well-rendered visitation [in American Galactic]…The cleverness in Wiseman’s collection is in the essential humanness of these exotic creatures, which leads the reader to wonder: which of us is stranger? They, too, go to museums (for the amphibian and mammoth exhibits) and watch movies, shaking at death scenes and crash landings. They, too, slurp hot chocolate and get tattoos. They, too, play dress-up with boots, hats, and scarves. Even Martians are willing to walk the dog around the block. They, too, miss home. ” - Weave

“While it is true that Laura Madeline Wiseman’s stunning exposé of uxoricide and myth, Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (2014), recounts the Bluebeard Myth, the book is no simple retelling of one man’s compulsive brutality upon the second sex. Three sisters are given the chance to show us their lives, and through the process, teach us about love. In narratives that entice me to lose myself, Wiseman explores intimacy and fatality as symbiotic philosophies that divulge the role of the battered wife’s body—its possession, its duplicity, and ultimately, its reclamation.” - New South Journal

“American Galactic is… a delightful collection of verse… It is book that needed to be written.” - Morphemic Morphology

“Deskins’ artwork is vibrant, with Wiseman’s playful poems surrounding it [in Intimates and Fools]…the overall feeling from the collection is one of simple joy in these sacred garments we hold close. As Wiseman writes: ‘With or without them, my cups are full – overflowing.'” - Black Heart Magazine

“She urges us to read and write poetry that ‘makes things happen, or at the very least, had the potential to initiate action.’ …. Wiseman accurately opines the power of language, the most powerful weapon humankind has ever created, able to combat violence but equally able to inviolate…. Her process results in a wonderful kaleidoscope of perspective…. Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence must become the rule, not the exception; the action, not the obsolescence.” - Blotterature Literary Review

“Intimates and Fools is a visually stunning book. This insightful collaboration between poet Laura Madeline Wiseman and artist Sally Deskins gives us not only a look into the bras that hold women’s breasts, but uncovers the history and honesty of what women wear beneath their garments… Throughout, we never leave what holds up the breasts, what women desire in a bra, what women might do without them, even how these intimate garments are cared for over time. This is a book about the female body and what adorns it, what is bought and given away in so many forms.” - Connotation Press

“What makes Queen of the Platform, Laura Madeline Wiseman’s eleventh collection of poetry so different from these other books is that the protagonist of this historical research already had a voice. A loud and influential voice. This book is less the powerful contemporary writer reaching into history to unearth something lost, and more the writer allowing herself to be lost in the rich and varied experiences of a powerful woman who has much to teach a contemporary readership about the nuances of power, gender, and the importance of language.” - The Volta

“Deskins’s own art, colorful sketches and body prints, unapologetically splash across the page in bright strokes while Wiseman’s handwritten prose snakes up and around, balancing and accompanying the art in Intimates and Fools… It made me want to linger, to touch the page, run my hands across the color and script. It was more of an experience than just interpretation… it’s what’s just under the busy surface that’s most appealing: the wildly complex social constructs of female body, and the symbol of the bra as the ultimate carrier of all things female: shame, sexuality, strength.” - [Pank] Magazine

“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 of feminism and justice, with her poignant and heartfelt writing via the perspective of the inspiring Matilda and the men around her….” Weave Magazine

“The anthology is impressive not only for the diversity of voices represented, but the writers’ multifaceted approach to received literary forms…the poems in Women Write Resistance suggest the myriad ways that the existing literary landscape can be renegotiated, re-imagined, and redefined.…Indeed, Wiseman’s anthology is a carefully constructed, masterfully executed, and necessary contribution to the study of women’s writing.” - Pleiades