Susan Wheeler Biography

Susan Wheeler (born July 16, 1955) is an educator and award-winning poet whose poems have frequently appeared in anthologies. She is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Princeton University. She has also taught at University of Iowa, NYU, Rutgers, Columbia University and The New School.

Wheeler was born in Pittsburgh and grew up throughout Minnesota and New England. She received a BA from Bennington College in 1977 and pursued graduate studies in art history at the University of Chicago between 1979 and 1981.

Wheeler was the first example of an Elliptical Poet described by Stephen Burt in his creation of the term in 1998. and expanded upon in an eponymous essay in American Letters & Commentary. Her work is also referred to in Jed Rasula's Syncopations: The Stress of Innovation in Contemporary American Poetry.