Heidi Slettedahl
Latest Book
"Heidi Slettedahl's Mo(u)rning Rituals is a frank and deeply affecting collection. The poems housed within its covers are rife with the terrible specifics of unrelenting loss. In the very first section of the book we find Slettedahl reflecting on a series of failed pregnancies, lamenting “the phantom kickings that never were” and yearning for “a more complex and chaotic life.” Unmercifully, the losses don’t stop there. She also has to contend with a lost friendship and a dying father. Jane Kenyon has been quoted as saying that “there…is consolation from sad poems” and Slettedahl is acutely aware of this phenomenon. She reminds us that we are not alone in our suffering and grief. And we can persevere because she shows us how. I highly recommend this brave and impactful debut."
Corey Cook
Editor of Red Eft Review
Author of Passing Cars
"Heidi Slettedahl’s collection Mo(u)rning Rituals offers us a remarkably powerful combination of poetic craft and tragic eloquence in its evocation of childlessness. This collection will haunt you with the ghosts of children who never were, of lost selves, of lives that will never be lived, portrayed with unflinching courage. It packs an extraordinary punch with its honesty and beauty of language. By any standard, this collection is an extraordinary achievement."
Susan Castillo Street, Harriet Beecher Stowe Professor Emerita, Kings College, London
"This book is what it says, carefully hidden by brackets: a mourning for lost children, a mourning of the past. Mo(u)rning Rituals is a heart-wrenching collection of poems that opens up the visceral hurt of childlessness. The directness and lack of flowery language open the reader up to the hurt and the challenges that the writer faced in a world fraught by the frailty of the body. Slettedahl’s poems do not, however, wallow in self pity. Rather, they are real, they are funny, they are what they are - an exposé of the feelings that she has as a woman who does not have children but has a burning desire to do so, only to be defeated time and time again by her own body. We see the child that will never be there, we feel the heartache, the absence, the love that would have been showered upon the child if only they had existed. The poetry brought tears to my eyes; the sadness is ingrained in the writing. And there is more here too: the loss of the author's father, and her lost friendships. Loss and mourning pervade these pages. But is the "Morning" a sign of hope? We can only hope so. These are cathartic poems that hopefully bring some peace. For the reader, they fill us with pain and loss and empathy. We are there. We can share the grief and agony. Of course not completely - but the beauty of the words allows us an insight into her world. This is a world we need to understand as we face our lives and our own problems. These poems make us feel like we are not alone."
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Jonathan Wilkins, in Everybody's Reviewing: https://everybodysreviewing.blogspot.com/search?q=SLettedahl
"Heidi Slettedahl writes powerfully emotional poems in a voice that, if not exactly calm, is wise and assured. Many deal with the agony of repeated loss and the figure of the absent child. The poems, never gaudy or dressed in rhetorical finery, speak in plain language directly from experience. Her short poems are deft, sometimes darkly funny. These are strong poems, often facing up to pain, but never self-indulgent, without a hint of falseness or pretense."
Steve Klepetar
Professor Emeritus
St. Cloud State University
Author of Speaking to the Field Mice, Family Reunion, The Li Bo Poems and others.
Latest Publications
"The Scar" in Discretionary Love, October 2024 https://www.discretionarylove.com/the-scar/
"A Charmed Life" in MockingHeart Review 9.3 (2024) https://mockingheartreview.com/volume-9-issue-3/heidi-slettedahl/
"A Man Tells Me I am Beautiful" in Rat's Ass Review Fall-Winter 2024 https://ratsassreview.net/?page_id=4369
"My Childhood is Strange to Me" in Red Eft Review https://redeftreview.blogspot.com/2024/08/my-childhood-is-strange-to-me-by-heidi.html
"Waitress With a Chance of Death" in Red Eft Review https://redeftreview.blogspot.com/2024/08/waitress-with-chance-of-death-by-heidi.html
"The True Story of Our Journey Home to See My Father" in Rat's Ass Review Spring-Summer 2024 https://ratsassreview.net/?page_id=4315
"L'Amour Quotidien" in Discretionary Love, December 2023, https://www.discretionarylove.com/lamour-quotidien/
​ Bio
Heidi Slettedahl is a US-UK dual national who began writing poetry at age 10 after a chance encounter with the poet Nancy Paddock. She has been published in a variety of literary journals. Her first collection of poetry, Mo(u)rning Rituals (Kelsay Books), was published in July 2024.
Under the name Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson, she is the author of the following academic books:
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Introduction to Margaret Atwood (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
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Transatlantic Women’s Literature, for the “Edinburgh Series in Transatlantic Literatures” (Edinburgh University Press, 2008). Distributed in the US by Columbia University Press.
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Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-Century Literature (University of Akron Press, 2007).
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Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics and History, a 3-volume encyclopedia in the Transatlantic Relations series (ABC-Clio, 2005). Co-edited with Will Kaufman.
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New Perspectives in Transatlantic Studies (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002). Co-edited with Will Kaufman.
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Transatlantic Studies (University Press of America, 2000). Co-edited with Will Kaufman.
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Women’s Movement: Escape as Transgression in North American Feminist Fiction (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2000).
She taught creative writing, American literature and women’s literature in the United Kingdom before returning to the US to pursue an administrative career in higher education.
She is currently working on two novels in progress.
