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Nikki Wallschlaeger (she/her) has authored four collections of poetry:Hold Your Own, Waterbaby,Crawlspace, and Houses. In addition to several chapbooks, she also wrote the graphic book I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel (2019) and an artist book titled Operation USA through the Baltimore-based book arts group Container, a project acquired by Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. With a potentness that cuts right to the heart of matters, Wallschlaeger's poetry is heavily informed by Black feminism and delves into themes of race, sexuality, gender, politics, and contemporary culture. She has previously served as the poetry editor of Protean Magazine and a visiting assistant professor of poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a lifelong resident of Wisconsin and currently lives in the Driftless region cataloging books at Metaphysical Graffiti.
“Given their emotional complexity and numerous formal maneuvers these poems cannot be neatly summarized, but taken together they depict a poet working hard to identify and engage her social and historical positions while simultaneously fighting to resist their containment.” —Poetry “Wallschlaeger hits a delicious pitch somewhere between tragedy and humor.” —Hyperallergic “Permeated by animus towards racism and capitalism, Wallschlaeger’s [Crawlspace] is political, personal, and timely.” —Publishers Weekly “These are not sonnets; they’ re better than that: fiercer, freer, and loosened as the wood violet is of the murky ground. Held, yet uncontained.” —Chicago Review “[T]he form here envelops the helium and hydrogen of racism and violence … and creates powerful heat and light from their fusion.” —The Rumpus “[Nikki Wallschlaeger’s] approach is to slice to the heart, and it’s something that will leave a mark on readers, as there are lines here that punch with the power of truths many would rather not discuss in public. … This song isn’t just a healing song; this is the song we should play as we march into battle against racism and as we imagine the party we’d have after the death of capitalism.” –PANK
