Stephanie Leal is a cheerleader – slightly breathy, blinded by halogen, fingers splayed, flat palms held parallel to one another mid-explanation. She is talking about an ex-boyfriend called Andrew T Lemar. Andrew T Lemar will one day be the governor of Virginia. Stephanie Leal would have made a good governor’s wife. She is not telling the audience this however, she is explaining how Andrew T Lemar is threatening to sue her over her soon-to be published book ‘Metrophobia.’

Stephanie Leal is not a cheerleader. It’s a double bluff – a way of catching the audience off-guard - wrong-footing all the preconceived notions of her. The Catholic Virginian Farm-Girl – that’s true enough, as is the threat of legal action from an ex – but underneath the American Sweetheart lies something complex and multi-faceted. The poems turn familiar tropes and warp them into new, peculiar shapes; the one-night stand becomes a defiant one, stories of her grandfather take a hallucinatory turn. Stephanie Leal’s world is one where preconceived ideas unravel suddenly, leaving a strange and unfamiliar territory behind them.

Somewhere Stephanie Leal has garnered the reputation of having a switchblade tongue. Performer and poet Russell J Turner assured her that butter wouldn’t melt. He’s right - one suspects it would be cut to ribbons. She’s funny. Astute observer, a tolerance for the absurd – she says it best herself in ‘Niva’ – “There is zip-line appeal to clown school.” Andrew T Lemar messed with the wrong girl. Even the vague threats of violence she

uses in order to prompt friends to attend her public speaking engagements embody a determination of spirit. There are rumours that she is an expert in Civil-War military history. It’s possible she is plotting to recreate the whole thing in intricate detail, only this time as absurdist drama, or at least in sonnet form – a battle of her against Collingwood and his internalisation of art arguments. She sees craft and art as having a more symbiotic relationship; ‘My internalization is not available in sonnet form any more distinctly from those bookshelves I just put together this morning.’ It’s equally possible she started the history rumour herself, another vestment to accompany the cheerleader outfit.

Stephanie Leal is charm-school quick with her diplomacy, and devastating with her wit. She is given flowers by a lover, and acrobats the antiquated gesture into a sign that the relationship will expire. A cousin once critiqued her writing as part of a paper on sexuality. Like most female poets, she is faced with the same tightrope act around whether to address her gender. She does so, and makes the process of crossing the high wire dazzling. She is neither militant nor fawning – a struck bell that demonstrates a romantic but pragmatic spirit.

Stephanie Leal is as bright as a button. And would punch you in the stomach for being so patronising. Her poetry is compelling, and enough of a divine mystery that ‘Metrophobia’ will prove to be vital – a volume you will mark for constant re-reading.

‘Metrophobia’ is published by Penned in the Margins Check out Stephanie Leal’s myspace -

Words > Andy Spragg
Photos > Amy Wragg