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Long for This World features the best of Ronald Wallace's work from his previous collections of poetry -- Plums, Stones, Kisses & Hooks (1981), Tunes for Bears to Dance To (1983), People and Dog in the Sun (1987), The Makings of Happiness (1991), Time's Fancy (1994), and The Uses of Adversity (1998) -- along with a generous selection of twenty-six new poems. If Wallace's recent poems sometimes seem darker and deeper, more meditative and complex, less sanguine about the tragedies of daily life, they never sacrifice the comic sense, the synthesis of technical skill and strong emotion, and the sensory immediacy that have become his hallmarks.
About the author
Ronald Wallace is the author of seven previous books of poetry, including:
Long for This World: New and Selected Poems; The Uses of Adversity; Time's Fancy; People and Dog in the Sun; and
The Makings of Happiness. His works of literary criticism include:
God Be with the Clown: Humor in American Poetry; The Last Laugh: Form and Affirmation in the Contemporary American Comic Novel; and
Henry James and the Comic Form. Wallace is Halls-Bascom Professor of English, Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry, and codirector of the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Summary
Long for This World includes twenty-six new poems from this master of the sonnet and other traditional forms, along with selections from his six previous collections. This book exemplifies the comic sense, the synthesis of technical skill and strong emotion, and the sensory immediacy that have become Ronald Wallace's hallmarks.
