M. Brooke Wiese

M. Brooke Wiese                                                     

M. Brooke Wiese’s poems have appeared most recently in The Road Not Taken, Sparks of Calliope, The Chained Muse, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Sonnet Scroll of The Poetry Porch, Bronze Bird Books journals and anthologies on love and on climate change, in Spoon River Poetry Review, and in numerous other literary journals, in print and online.

Her second chapbook, Memento Mori, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.  In a book composed entirely of sonnets of various kinds, Wiese addresses the big topics of love, life, and mortality. Her poems are often set in New York City, or by the sea – her two favorite places to be.

As a young adult, Wiese’s poems appeared frequently in Atlanta Review, The Ledge, The Laurel Review, and Flyway. She had poems published in Barrow Street, Grand Street, and The Literary Review as well.  Her first chapbook, At the Edge of The World, was published by The Ledge Press in 2000, after which her life took a wondrous turn and she and her wife raised two sons while working at their day jobs to build careers in nonprofit community-based organizations.

After a very long hiatus she has been writing furiously again. Wiese writes most often in traditional forms, on modern topics, in a contemporary voice.  She especially loves the sonnet, Shakespearian or Petrarchan (English or Italian); the French villanelles, rondels and rondeaux; the Malaysian pantoum; and the Italian terza rima. For Wiese, writing in traditional forms provides both order and momentum to what she wants to say, but also frequently takes her in a direction she hadn’t planned to go – traditional forms both contain and unleash emotion, and she usually finds that where she ends up is just the right place to be.

Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize multiple times.  Her sonnets have been taught by poet Billy Collins to his college students. Wiese lives in New York City and has worked in education-related leadership positions in the nonprofit sector, and currently teaches at a special education inclusion school in Manhattan, to high school students of all abilities. (When she introduces herself to new students, she tells them that “Wiese” rhymes with “peace,” and they never mispronounce her name!)

M. Brooke Wiese holds an A.B. in English from Barnard College, Columbia University; an M.F.A. in poetry from Brooklyn College, the City University of New York; and an M.S.Ed in English Education from Lehman College, CUNY.  She has taught creative writing to adult and school-age students with various types of intellectual disability, to senior citizens, and to unhoused adults.

Wiese considers it her great fortune to have had the opportunity to study with poets Marilyn Hacker, Joan Larkin, Billy Collins, Molly Peacock, David Trinidad, Eileen Myles, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, and Lesléa Newman – and kismet to have studied with Allen Ginsberg.