Leo Wyatt

Hello.

I'm Leo Wyatt. I'm a poet & a painter.

I've worked in retail, construction, grocery, & most recently, taught rhetoric at the University of Iowa.

I'm trying to make works that take the top of your head off , that drive a burning sabre through a frozen heart .

They are disturbed & made by wave sound by atmosphere & rarely approach a response that cld be called musical. If they are felt as such, that's more than one cld hope for.

Many technics here are borrowed from construction & labor trades—I fabricate the backing support & frames, & paint on sanded plywood, hardboard or MDF, gypsum or sheet rock, cement board, & canvas. I use joint compound, caulk, gel, acrylic emulsions, alcohol & paint markers, charcoal & graphite, wax pens, spray paint, vinyl adhesives, wallpaper, fabric, computer components, tar, oil pastels, & oil paints.

I use joint knives, putty knives, silicone tools, brushes, bottles, squeegee-like implements, palette knives, bristled objects, & more brushes.

Because I lack technical & formal skills, the works suffer from both an historical myopia, an ignorance of the contemporary global art market, an absence of art world networks, & primarily from conceptual & technical planning & exec...

M.F.A., The Iowa Writers' Workshop 2016
B.A., Pacific Lutheran University 2011

Poems have appeared in the following magazines or journsls:

Best American Poetry (2020)
New England Review
Lana Turner Journal
Iowa Review Online
Prelude Magazine
Omniverse
Poetry Is Dead
Horse Thief
Canada Quarterly
Tulane Review

The Dream of Zukofsky, a chapbook, was a finalist & semifinalist for Omnidawn's Chapbook Contest.