Meme

by Susan Wheeler

Acclaimed poet Susan Wheeler, whose last individual collection predicted the spiritual losses of the economic collapse, turns her attention to the most intimate of subjects: the absence or loss of love.
 
A meme is a unit of thought replicated by imitation; examples of memes, Richard Dawkins wrote, “are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” Occupy Wall Street is a meme, as are internet ideas and images that go viral. What could be more potent memes than those passed down by parents to their children?
 Wheeler reconstructs her mother’s voice—down to its cynicism and its mid twentieth-century midwestern vernacular—in “The Maud Poems,” a voice that takes a more aggressive, vituperative turn in “The Devil—or—The Introjects.” In the book’s third long sequence, a generational inheritance feeds cultural transmission in “The Split.” A set of variations on losses and break-ups—wildly, darkly funny throughout and, in places, devastatingly sad—“The Split” brings Wheeler’s lauded inventiveness, wit, and insight to the profound loss of love. One read, and the meme “Should I stay or should I go?” will be altered in your head forever. 

Genres: Poetry

87 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Poet and writer Susan Wheeler earned a BA at Bennington College and did graduate work in Art History at the University of Chicago. Her first poetry collection, Bag o' Diamonds (1993), won the Norma Faber First Book Award. The Village Voice Literary Supplement described that book as displaying “limber intelligence and visual wit... with influences including John Berryman, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, and the Language poets;” the reviewer noted that Wheeler “risks echoing everybody while sounding like no one.” Wheeler's work is noted for its sonic and lyric intensity, surrealist imagery, use of pop culture, pastiche, and non seuqitur, as well as its playful relationship to received form. According to literary critic Majorie Perloff, “Wheeler is that rare thing among poets, a genuine cultural critic; her poems use image and allusion with such exactitude that we see the things around us — from pop tarts to polyvinylled toilet seats —as if for the first time.” Other collections include Smokes (1998), selected by Robert Hass for the Four Way Book Prize and a featured selection of the Poetry Book of the Month Club; Source Codes (2001); Ledger (2005), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize; Assorted Poems (2009); and Meme (2012), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her novel, Record Palace (2005) won high praise for its atmospheric portrayal of Chicago and deft blending of coming-of-age narrative with noir.

Wheeler has won numerous awards and honors for her work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has received the Boston Review Poetry Award, the Robert D. Richardson Award for Non-Fiction from the Denver Quarterly, and a Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has taught in writing programs at the New School, New York University, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Columbia University. Wheeler is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Victoria Lambert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had no clue what was going on throughout this entire book.

[Kasandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

An "elegy" for a mother with whom the author seems to have had "issues", this feels like a string of short remembrances laced with conversation and imagery that never strikes the heart, speaks to the soul, or signifies much beyond whatever it means to the poet. This is the sort of "poetry" where I feel just about anyone could read the book, copy the style, and turn out 100 of these entire books every single year. I don't understand this stuff. It speaks to nothing in me, it's just splattered on the page and called poetry. That said, of course, Wheeler gets high praise on the back of the book and teaches poetry, so it's very clear that when it comes to modern poetry and the evaluation of same, I just don't freakin' get it. I can't think of a single poet friend of mine who would like this book, but if any of you do read it, let me know what I'm missing/not getting, ok? Totally left me cold. And frustrated.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meme happens in three parts.

In "The Maud Poems," each page sticks a mini four-line poem into something that feels like a conversation between a harried mother/wife and the people in her house. I wanted to read more of what she was putting on the page, and less reminders to eat your vegetables.

In "The Devil - or - The Introjects" - these are tiny poems, sometimes just thoughts in passing. One on a page, and the pages go quickly.

In "The Split," it is hard to tell if each page is a poem again, or if the entire thing is one long meandering poem moving through different styles and techniques. Interesting ideas in there, but the entire volume feels like a peek into someone's train of thought, and not what I would necessarily always call poetry. More like a capture of a moment in time.

[wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short collection of three series of poems that look into interpersonal relationships mainly from a negative point of view. The first shows cliche after cliche that parents use to try to get their kids to do want they want them to do. They are very trite but I heard many of them when I was growing up. The last series is about the feelings and things we say when we are in the process of splitting up with someone that we once loved. The book was a finalist for the National Book award and I think is worth reading.

[Abigail Munson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting more. Felt like I was living on a rural farm with my 3rd grade teacher who always smelled like cigarettes and oranges and she was scolding me for not doing the dishes after supper. (Weird feeling I know but that's how I felt) Kind of boring, kind of odd but not enough of either to be good or bad.

[Cee Spind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe it's my mind this summer, but I've liked all the poetry books once I set them down--the caught conversational fragments grew on me.

[Ashlyn Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to follow, but I got the gist of about half of it.

[Liam Guilar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t understand. This book was a national book award finalist. I think there’s a point where being clever takes over and sets up a smoke screen. I think i understand what's going on, but I don't know why I should care enough to try and tease it out. Consider what would happen if anyone else offered this poem to a publisher:

I thought I was up in my head.
Was I up in my head
Or dead?

this takes up a whole page in 'Meme".

Or this one which has a title:

Judas Priest.
You can’t sit there and tell me anything you’ve said here is true.
Lace our shut eyes shut
Don’t you ping my machine. Young lady.

The next one might offend but after you’ve got over the obvious cleverness of being able to read the first and last line downwards and at beginning and end, isn’t the appropriate critical question is the statement worth reading?


wait I’m not done fucking wait I’m not done fucking wait
I’m not done fucking wait I’m not done fucking wait I’m
not done fucking wait I’m not done fucking wait I’m not
done fucking wait I’m not done fucking wait I’m not done
fucking wait I’m not done fucking wait I’m not done fucking
wait I’m not done fucking wait I’m not done fucking wait (p74)

I’m sure that conceptually ‘Meme’ is very good, and somewhere someone is already writing an academic paper about it, the blurb points out the writer's status as teacher of poetry at Princeton, no less but as a collection of poems, I’m not sure it offers a reader anything except the spectacle of a writer daring the critic to say "This is worthless". And the fact it was a "National Book Award Finalist" suggests something depressing about the way "poetry" is being published, read and received.

[Heather M L · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh! I get it....mixing of the mundane of daily life with the poetry of it, the gentle and abrupt colliding, the soft thoughts that enter, stream of consciousness like....but I don't enjoy this at all. It's not exactly the style, but it's too abrasive and I don't like the tone....and imbalance of the poetry and the softness coming through the mess of daily life. Also, it just starts to all feel contrived.....not a fan.

[Katt Hansen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some modern poetry I like. This I don't. The Maud poems left me splintered with the snarl of a harridan mother in my ears. From there we went into train of thought into the viscera of disturbed images and sensation that I'm glad was over by the end of the book. One poem I liked out of the collection. The rest no. I wouldn't even call some of that poetry.

[Idra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was informative.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was totally unclear to me what the poet was trying for. Beyond the first section, which toyed with folksy colloquialisms, the poems felt flat and directionless to me, and even the first section ran out of steam quickly.

[Melissa Helton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved the various forms she used throughout and the forms would act as good writing prompts. I struggled to connect to the poems' movements on an individual level, which left me feeling disconnected from the speaker and the collection as a whole.

[Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

No idea how you rate poetry books. It had a few good lines here and there. Not looking for her other stuff though.

[AnandaTashie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a bit mixed about this book. On the one hand, the poems sometimes seemed disjointed or stream of consciousness (that didn't make a particularly strong emotional connection). Some of the play on words and format bordered on... maybe pretentious? On the other hand, some were interesting; some worked for me.

p 20, "You can't sit there and tell me anything you've said here is true. / Lace our shut eyes shut. / Don't you ping my machine. Young lady."

p 70, "Bye to those I fear dead. / I know you all in his absence tonight."

p. 79, "I will miss the way you look, at night - / eyes fatigued, wine-red, glum - / after you've been betrayed / by every shift I've made all day / to sight your halo against the light."

[Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire Wheeler for her verbal gymnastics, but I couldn't quite connect with the book as a whole. The force of a Meme is nowhere present. The book as a complete work seems too self-reflexive to reach beyond the personal. The Devil or The Introjects and The Split seem to be incomplete, barely overheard conversations. The Maud Poems, though, could stand on their own. They save the book. I love the way Wheeler mixes the idiomatic mother voice with the 4-line lyrics. It was both shocking and refreshing. I connected with these poems.

[Leonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 2012 National Book Award finalist is an unusual collection of poem. I liked the form of the poems in the first section in which each poems looks a poem within a poem, but was less impressed with their content. Like much poetry today some of these seem more like fragments of poetry rather than complete poems in themself. Most are untitled, which may make the poem seem more focused. Occasionally a titled poem results in the poem and its title leaing the reader in two different directions. This book might be worth your time if you are interested in pushing the boundaries of poetry.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a notes on how to read this than anything else: the three sections in this book each record one side of a conversation, or so I read it. So one is poet in dialogue with her mother, etc. Dialogues are further fragmented, with interpolated other bits. Formally I liked the challenges it presented, but the poems and the themes they engaged didn't make me feel moved to make the effort to decode it much more than I have here.

[Riegs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading these poems was like listening in on one side of a phone conversation. The reader is asked to fill in a lot of blanks, which is both good and bad. These poems are short, but sometimes inscrutable.

The Good
"Turkey in the Straw"
I don't want to hear a word from you until you pick up steam. Now god find Minneapolis. Get lost.

[Hank Kalet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, difficult book that deserves further reading.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

WTF.

Um, no.

[John Orman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, in this tiny book I did not see the point of just about all these poems--but maybe that was the point?

[Rambling Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting..
.

[Kenneth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute garbage. How was this a finalist for the National Book Award?!?!