Mycocosmic

by Lesley Wheeler

Mycocosmic offers intricately woven incantations—prayers, hexes, and charms—all of which call for a transformation of language, grief, and the self.



“Good things come to you through fire,” a Tarot reader told Lesley Wheeler as she was composing what became her sixth poetry collection, Mycocosmic. But how could that be true, while the planet was burning and life slamming her with one loss after another? Then she learned about pyrophilic fungi that lurk in soil until activated by fire. Enter mycelia and a teeming underground world that metabolizes death, changing what remains so that life can begin anew.



Mycocosmic offers intricately woven spell poems—prayers, hexes, charms, and invocations—that call for transformation. A parent’s death gives Wheeler the freedom to reveal difficult truths about family violence and her sexuality; a midlife mental health crisis transforms her sense of self. Incantatory language channeled through a wide variety of forms—including free verse, litany, sonnets, the bref double, the golden shovel, and the villanelle—empowers these shifts.



Beneath these poems runs a book-length essay in verse, “Underpoem [Fire Fungus],” sending tendrils across the footer of each page. This poetic mycelium nourishes metamorphosis and highlights its urgency. As Merlyn Sheldrake writes in Entangled Life, “Mycelium describes the most common of fungal habits, better thought of not as a thing but as a an exploratory, irregular tendency.” Poetry is rooted in real and imagined communities and conversations. Mycocosmic demonstrates how interdependence binds us together.

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2025

About the author

Lesley Wheeler's books are Poetry's Possible Worlds, a book about reading 21st century poetry during a time of crisis; the novel Unbecoming; and seven poetry books, most recently The State She's In. Poetry Editor of Shenandoah, she was born in New York, raised in New Jersey, and now resides in Virginia. Her partner is comics scholar, fiction writer, and playwright Chris Gavaler. They have two children.

Reviews

[Chanel Chapters]

Quietly luminescent 🍄 ✨

[Kira Rosemarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Tupelo Press, for the advance copy of this wonderful collection!

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A joy-sparking poetry collection (especially within the underpoem, ‘Fire Fungus’) abundant in celebrations of discovery, grief, and growth. One line from ‘Fire Fungus’ encapsulates this perfectly: “no one’s gone, just enjambed”.

Highly recommended.

[LizzieReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of poetry is a fascinating read - especially with the footnotes at the bottom of each page that constitute poems all on their own. I hope I get the chance to read this as a physical book someday soon instead of just as an ebook, it would make it a bit easier to read the footnotes as they were supposed to be read.

[Lauren Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems aren't bad. Some are even very good, particularly the footnote poem connecting each page. If I hadn't read the description I might have enjoyed this more, but I genuinely didn't get much from the language here in the way of spells and incantations, the way this was pitched. I also thought there'd be more about mushrooms, and other witchy ingredients in general. But this is a nice collection about a complicated family history mixed with poems about personal growth. It's just not what I expected.

[Cindy Veach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Brilliant Book!

“People say I’m reserved , but poems can’t keep secrets” is one of my favorite lines from Lesley Wheeler’s newest book “Mycocosmic” which employs fungi as a metaphor for the sometimes-hidden interconnectedness of love, desire, memory, the body, loss, motherhood, and daughterhood. Each poem stuns with startling images and lyrical lines. One of the signatures of this collection is a footnote poem with a line at the bottom of each page. This is a book I will return to over and over. —Cindy Veach

[Katina Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who recommended this to me?? I can’t remember, and I need to, because I loved it. The threads about family and motherhood and love and death floored me. Love.